Reprinted with permission from the Daily News
Rotarians love giving back to our community as we live by the motto of “Service Above Self.”
This is Faribault Rotary Club’s fourth 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. Saturday, Oct. 30. When guests arrive for the event they will be given a ticket as it will be first come, first served. Guests then fill out sizing information for their children and go through the line to receive clothing. There will be a maximum of two people per family allowed, due to the ongoing pandemic.
Because we have so much demand each year, our hope is to provide even more gently used outerwear and increase our monetary donations to purchase new items.
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 a few years. Last year we partnered with Faribault Youth Investment who provided donations of food and Rice County Public Health who donated supplies and resources. This year we are hoping for a similar collaboration with community organizations as we are currently working through the details. We have had many generous donors give both time and financial resources and we are deeply grateful for both. Our local community is great!
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, Fareway, 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.
