Rotary Club, United Way partner for colorful food delivery
The Rotary Club of Kokomo unveiled a colorful tool to help area school children get food their families need through weekends. Kokomo Rotarians and the United Way of Howard and Tipton Counties partnered to put a new trailer on the road to deliver food through the United Way’s Buddy Bags program.
“The Buddy Bag program helps fill the gaps to feeding young students on the weekends, when they are not in school receiving the meals they get throughout the week,” said Alan Parks, former Rotary Club president. By partnering with the United Way, he said, “Rotary’s engagement is not only important, but vital in helping students receive quality meals over the weekend when they’re not in school.”
In the past, the United Way program relied on a trailer borrowed from Sagamore Council, Scouting America, to load and deliver Buddy Bags. The bags are filled with food that children can take home to their families to get through the weekend. Bags are packed by volunteer organizations such as the Rotary Club.
Rotary members and United Way representatives opened discussions last year to get a trailer for the United Way to use regularly. The Rotary Club used local funds and a Rotary grant to purchase and wrap the trailer, as well as insure and plate it for one year.
Morgan Quinn, interim CEO for the local United Way, was enthusiastic about what the trailer means for the organization.
“The completion of this project is great for our community,” she said. “In addition to providing a safe, efficient, and sustainable method of delivering Buddy Bags to local students, it will also raise awareness of the Buddy Bags program.
“The colorful and thoughtful images and words wrapped on the trailer were carefully selected to engage the community in more ways and continue to grow support from our community members and businesses.”
Both Quinn and current Rotary Club President Courtney Butler hope the trailer’s visibility will create more awareness of food insecurity in Howard County and how the Buddy Bag program strives to address it.
“This project works towards several of our goals of Rotary such as growing local economies, saving children, and supporting education,” said Butler. “This program is so important because some of our children in our community go home hungry, and when they are focused on how hungry they are, they aren’t able to fully focus on their education. This program helps to fill that gap.”