Almost 60 cars brought a variety of items and cash donations to the dropoff site at the Libla Family Sports Complex as part of ACTS Day on Wednesday.
“Just an outpouring from the community. We’re just very grateful. We will be getting this to the groups and make sure the families get their food and their pet food,” said Robbie Myers, Butler County Emergency Management Agency Director. “We did get a lot of fabric and elastic, so we’ll be sharing those with different seamstresses that are making masks for us. We have a great need there so that call was specifically headed. We got a good amount of toilet paper, which was much needed. But the other is just a wide variety of non-perishable food items.”
ACTS stands for All Caring Together & Serving and was an effort by leaders of several community groups.
In the four hours that volunteers were collecting donations, Myers said there were about 20 cash donations for $3,000 in addition to other gifts people made directly to other organizations, or though different agency websites.
“There were some with very large, different amounts that they were filled to the brim with different things. Those, they usually had a variety of items that they were sharing with us. So some were very generous in that. And then some were just coming through to drop off checks,” Myers said.
The items donated at the drop-off site will be distributed to different organizations throughout the community such as the United Gospel Rescue Mission, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Northside Nutrition, the Bread Shed, Meals On Wheels, Deliver Hope, as well as the Animal Welfare Alliance. Additional donations to the AWA can be made through PayPal on the AWA’s website www.awasemo.org.
“We always appreciate the community stepping up. The needs will continue,” Myers said, adding that people should continue helping the organizations they prefer. “There will be different ways and help those organizations that have always been here year in and year out helping those. That’s what we’re doing, is trying to help support those (organizations) that are always out there feeding our community. We’re just trying to give them extra resources so whichever one people like to work with, we encourage them to not forget them in these trying times.”