ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Recent times have proven rather rough for people in terms of food security and throughout the holiday season, multiple entities throughout town have stepped up to help families in need, including the City of Liberal.
Donations for the City of Liberal food drive were collected through Dec. 8 and were able to be dropped off in the administration lobby at City Hall. As Chief Communications Officer Keeley Young tells it, the food drive more than exceeded her expectations.
“I didn't really have high expectations when we started because we hadn't ever done anything like the food drive before, but I was certainly blown away by the generosity of people coming in, whether they were individuals or a group of employees from a local business or civic group,” Young said. “We had multiple totes full of food, so it overall went very, very well, and I'm glad we did the drive. We filled at least three full car loads of food to be able to take, and I know the agencies that we took it to definitely had a need. They mentioned how we were helping, keeping them supplied for the month, which we were very grateful for. And after we started our drive, I noticed several other businesses and agencies started a collection too. And I think that's a good thing, because we want to be an example for the citizens of Liberal, and overall the food drive ended up being a good idea.”
Young added the donations came in pretty steadily and also praised the Liberal Area Coalition for Families for its work with the project.
“Our collections were pretty consistent. We did definitely have a few businesses that brought in a whole bunch at once, and we had another smaller group that came together and packaged recipes with ingredients and dropped off kits, which I thought was very cool to see,” Young said. “So again, overall, it was just a great turnout and it seemed pretty steady and continuous throughout the month. We worked with the Liberal Area Coalition for Families, because they are that frontline support in getting food to a family within 24 hours for urgent needs, and they help coordinate and work with other agencies within our community. So we felt that was a good resource to be able to work through and again, this was something we just put out into the community, and people responded. It was really easy for us to decide to work with them, it was just a matter of getting the word out and then from there, we arranged several pickups. As we continued to have food, we'd round up staff here at City Hall and help carry the donations out for them, and they were very pleased every time they stopped in to be able to pick things up. The excitement on their faces was super fulfilling to see.”
Young said she was blown away by the community’s generosity.
“When we had volunteers come pick up the food, and I saw how blown away they were with the amount we had collected, it almost brought tears to my eyes. We have such a generous community, and this definitely put our community pride on display,” Young said. “I certainly see this being something that we do again in the future, whether it's a seasonal, or maybe we do this at different points throughout the year as there's that need. This was an opportunity for us to respond to a need we'd recognized, and we are always looking for ways we can help residents where they are, so this ended up working out really well for us overall. We're open to meeting different needs – if we find there's a need for school supplies, we could give that a try too. This food drive was something that allowed us to come to gather as a community with one focus, and we'd certainly think about doing something like this again.”
Along with getting a high amount of donations, Young said there was also a lot of variety within those donations.
“I'm impressed with the amount of peanut butter we collected. That sounds funny, but it was something we got quite a bit of, and I think that's a good thing. That's something that's high-protein and it's something that is easy for kids to eat,” Young said. “We were glad to see some of that come through meals that were easy for kids to prepare. But in general, I feel like everything was pretty well spread out in terms of the variety of what we got. It sounded like we did well enough that the LACF didn't necessarily have to go and buy other odds and ends or pair up with it. We had a pretty good variety of stuff that we donated.”
Overall, Young said, she is extremely proud of the city’s inaugural food drive.
“We're really proud of what we saw our community come together to do, and their excitement towards giving. That's encouraging to see there are a lot of incredible people that live in this community, and people who really care and want to help, and this was just a good reminder of that. It was great to see those people coming in and being able to interact with them and thank them for being generous,” Young said. “I want to thank everyone who donated to the food drive, whether it was one item or multiple, because every bit helped. I'm so proud of our community for stepping up and helping their fellow citizens in a time of need. It just shows me how much people care, and I couldn't be happier with how this food drive turned out, especially since I had no set expectations going into it since this was our first one.”
