ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
The Liberal Area Coalition for Families’s food pantry got help from local Girl Scouts in two ways this month.
First, Troop 60129 took money collected in excess of cookie sales to purchase some of the troop’s remaining cookies to donate to the pantry.
“We sold cookies back in February,” troop leader Sarah McIntyre said. “Whenever someone tells us to keep the change at cookie sales, we then use that change as a donation, and we use that as what we call a care and share donation. We add that up and divide it by six, which is how much a package of cookies costs.”
McIntyre said these packages were collected and brought to the food pantry.
The second way Girl Scouts helped with the pantry came Tuesday, June 9, when leaders and young ladies helped coalition staff pack some of the backpacks for LACF’s Backpack Food Program.
McIntyre said the idea came when Girl Scouts made their cookie delivery to the food pantry, as coalition founder Kay Burtzloff told leaders and youth about the food delivery service.
“She invited us to come back and help them put those backpacks together,” McIntyre said.
In total, Troop 60129 earned enough to donate 30 cases of cookies, which McIntyre said could be given to people who could not otherwise afford the Girl Scout treat. She added donating cookies is something many troops do in today’s world.
“A lot of other troops, they donate them to the military, but I think it’s regional,” she said. “There’s some areas where they donate them to different organizations. All troops do it. If they get money donated, they’ll donate those cookies to an organization that could use them or need them.”
McIntyre said those who utilize the food pantry likely would not be able to purchase Girl Scout cookies, so making them part of the pantry made perfect sense.
“They’re not going to go and buy cookies, so it’s nice to be able to provide Girl Scout cookies to people who weren’t able to buy them,” she said.
A portion of this year’s cookie sales also went toward getting donations to the Liberal Animal Shelter, and the remainder of the proceeds, McIntyre said, would be used for troop meeting needs such as craft, supplies, snacks, badges and uniforms.
As far as the sales themselves, McIntyre said her troop went above and beyond.
“We had a low goal of 1,000 packages,” she said. “Our cookie booths sold 1,703 packages. We did go above that, and the girls also sold individually. The individual sales, that is for our meetings. Totally, we sold 5,303 packages. Total troop proceeds were $3,813.”
McIntyre said troop members made a great impact with this year’s sales and the projects for LACF.
“We’re really proud of them, and we’re able to go on a trip,” she said. “We’re helping the community out and making sure they know we’re here and helping and doing what Girl Scouts do, which is make the world a better place.”
Burtzloff said she found the cookie donation amazing.
“The 30 boxes of Girl Scout cookies was great,” she said. “We try to be careful. We try to always give nutritious food, so to be able to throw a treat in, especially during the summer months when the kids are home, it’s just so nice to be to give that little bit of extra.”
The Backpack Food Program had its first distribution Friday, June 5, and Burtzloff said 150 packs were distributed.
LACF recently received a Community Service Block Grant and now covers 13 counties, and with that, Burtzloff said, comes a name change, which had been in the works for a while.
“We had talked about changing our name before because we’ve outgrown the Liberal area,” she said. “We’ve been doing a lot of work in Stevens County and Haskell County for the last couple years, but with this grant, the fact it’s going to be a continuing grant, the fact you have to have all this background paperwork done, now seemed to be the best time to change our name to blend in with this new grant.”
The new name of the coalition will be the Community Action Coalition for Families.
“Instead of LACF, it’ll be CACF, and most of the time, people call us the Coalition for Families anyway,” Burtzloff said.
In addition to Seward County, Stevens County and Haskell County, the coalition now serves Finney, Ford, Grant, Gray, Hamilton, Haskell, Hodgeman, Kearny, Meade, Morton and Stanton counties.
