Rotarians are invited to volunteer Friday evening Oct. 30 at 5:30 pm and Saturday morning Oct. 31 at 8:30 am at the Faribo West Mall to help with the distribution of winter clothing. An online signup was sent through email to each Rotarian. If you have any questions, please contact Keith Kramer.
The following was a guest column in the Faribault Daily News and reprinted with permission.
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Rotarians love giving back to our community as we live by the motto of ‘Service Above Self.’ This is Faribault Rotary Club’s third year of hosting Warm Our Community which is an event where we give away winter outerwear to school age students in the Faribault community. We have a heart to see school age children receive warm coats, snow pants, boots and other items for our long Minnesota winters! This year we feel that there will be a great need and in past years we have always had a greater demand for outerwear than we have been able to supply. Our best estimate is that we were able to provide 100 families and hundreds of local youth with needed outerwear during the Warm Our Community event last year. This year Warm Our Community is graciously hosted by the Faribo West Mall, east entrance at 9 a.m. Oct. 31. When guests arrive for the event they will be given a ticket as it will be first come, first served. Social distancing and mask wearing will be mandatory as guests fill out sizing information for their children and then go through and receive clothing. There will be a maximum of two people per family allowed, due to the ongoing pandemic. We are excited that to date we are on track with where we were last year with monetary donations along with donations of new and gently used outerwear, but we are hopeful to exceed and help even more children this year. One of the best things about this event is the opportunity to collaborate with other organizations within our community who also care deeply about each child having warm winter gear. The Faribault Y-Pro group which is now 507-Connect started the event and hosted it for two years. This year we are partnering with Faribault Youth Investment who will provide donations of food and Rice County Public Health who are donating supplies and resources. We have had many generous donors give both time and financial resources and we are deeply grateful for both. Our local community is so awesome! Our ask is for those in more fortunate circumstances to drop off new or gently used winter outerwear at one of our collection points: HyVee, River Valley Church, Reliance Bank, Hometown Credit Union and the Faribault Area Chamber of Commerce. There are also opportunities to volunteer at the event and if you are interested please send us a message on our Rotary website, portal.clubrunner.ca/7871. We really appreciate the community backing for this great event and we are humbled to see such generosity! I am grateful to be a Rotarian and have the opportunity to serve. |
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