Causes We Support (Local)

Many East Texas children who participate in free and reduced price school meal programs during the week face hunger on weekends and holidays, when those programs do not operate.

The East Texas Food Bank Backpack Program was designed to close this weekend hunger gap for these children. Staff and faculty members at school campuses choose which children join the program, based on an assessment of need.

On Fridays, participating children each receive a backpack filled with nutritious, kid-friendly items such as fruit, juice, 2 single serving cans of pasta or rice based entrees, cereal/bars and shelf-stable milk to help last them until Monday morning, when school meal programs resume.  

Each year, the number of students requiring food changes but has been in the 65-90 range during the school year.

The Quitman Rotary Club has teamed with Quitman's First United Methodist Church.

Remembering Polio at its peak  (Dallas Morning News July 30, 2017)

Rotary is partnered with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to provide Medicare and aid to those in need.

Worldwide we have donated over 1 Billion dollars to providing education, immunizations, and healthcare to wipe out this deadly disease. 

PolioPlus is a far reaching organization, dedicated to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Rotary is a leader in the private sector, seeking to rid the world of Polio. This crippling disease has plagued humanity for over 30 years. PolioPlus is setting a standard worldwide as the strongest model of public-private cooperation as we pursue a humanitarian goal.

Rotary International Ending Polio link:  Goal and "By the numbers"

Each year, 130-140 million children are born!  Polio vaccination is the only way to prevent polio spreading.  

Why 5 years old is critical! Zero-dose children video is a 2.5 minute video:  https://www.endpolio.org/resource-center#video

Short video about Rotary, Pakistan and Polio vaccine:

The Quitman Rotary Club works with the local Meals-on-Wheels coordinator to deliver a number of these meals on selected Monday mornings. We are extremely please to play a small part in this very important nutrition program for senior citizens. 

Meals on Wheels E. Texas

The Quitman Rotary Club works with ETFB to help distribute food at both Quitman and Mineola Mobile Pantry sites (Bud Moody Stadium Quitman and Yellow Jacket Stadium Mineola).  Each sites holds 1 distribution per month in which families can attend either or both.  No IDs are checked.  Staffed with volunteers, organization and businesses from the Community.

Below is the graph for Quitman and Mineola since this ETFB has distributed food.   When we convert to the new “Drop” distribution model, these will be separated.

In 2026, both Quitman and Mineola Rotary Clubs will become Partner Agencies with ETFB.  In this expanded role, ETFB will only deliver food for our local, monthly distributions and then depart back to ETFB HQ.  All local management will be up to either Quitman or Mineola Rotary Clubs to manage with community volunteers to setup, pack, distribute, tear down, distribute leftover edible food to local food pantries, provide inedible food to farmers/people with animals that can eat it, discard trash and submit post distribution report back to ETFB.  

Each month will have both Quitman and Mineola distributions listed with sign ups.  For each distribution you would like to volunteer, please register.  This helps us plan for each distribution.  Here are the registration links for each site/date:

Quitman 2026 ETFB Distribution sign up links per month:

June: Jun 17th

July: Jul 15th

August: Aug 19th

September: Sep 16th

October: Oct 21st

November: Nov 18th

December: Dec 16th

Mineola 2026 ETFB Distribution sign up links per month: 

June: Jun 25th

July: Jul 30th

August: Aug 27th

September: Sep 24th

October: Oct 29th

November: Nov 19th

December: Dec 17th