In this season of gratitude, it is amazing what members of Southtowne do to help the local community.
Special Thanks:
- Pat Miller and Lonny King helped make December food boxes possible. We did a record 108 food boxes and had over 50 volunteers helping pack and deliver the boxes. We have benefited from several members bringing a friend to help.
- Food for Lane County provided turkey breasts, gravy, mashed potatoes and stuffing for boxes
- The Mission provided whole turkeys, whole chickens and chocolates for the boxes.
- Various Club Members who bought Turkey Bucks to make special requests for hams possible. We never know until the last minute what is meat and produce is possible. Thank you all for making these boxes have enough food stretch through winter break with kids home from school.
- Cow Creek provided grant funds for these boxes.
- Lane County Health Council granted Southtowne a generous $14,500 for food boxes and food for homeless youth. We are very grateful!
- We were also the benefactors of a $500 gift from Zippo logs and a $500 gift from an anonymous contributor.
Another Rotary moment was painting wooden snowflakes with over 100 preschool children and giving them “A Little Snowflake” book to take home. The smiles and hugs were contagious and sharing this joy made this a special moment for reading team members Doug Mozan, Mary Ellen King, Kathi Hoffer Travis Misfeldt, Jim and Karen Fretwell, and Jim and Camille Ronzio. 5 Head Start classrooms had Rotary visitors.
Shopping elves Jim and Bonnie Martin, Deanna Rivera, and Kathi Hoffer joined with the Lambda Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma (teachers honorary) to bring 108 warm sweatsuits to local Head Start children. These went home with the children over winter break – to provide extra warmth needed by many! Head Start staff sorted the sweats. This was accomplished with less than $100 of club funds!
Another great year of collaboration with the Springs Satellite Club as they put up their annual Angel tree. Southtowne partners provided names of families’ wants and needs. Gary Brown at the Springs did an excellent job of coordinating gift tags and donations. Grace Widdicombe did a wonderful spreadsheet of needs, and Lonny and Mary Ellen King helped on the deliveries. Gifts were provided to 15 of the most needy families with children in our community. H.O.N.E.Y donated over 40 $50 gift cards and some were used for this effort and others were used for food boxes. The Mission gave us a box of See’s Chocolates for each family and a local quilting group completed a quilt for each of these families. Gift bags were also donated by the Martins and several Southtowne members took a family and provided a gift for each family member – one Rotarian family even took a Christmas tree with lights and decorations, and delivered it early for that family.
It was truly a season of giving! Thanks to this very special Rotary club!
