I am always amazed by how the Greene community pulls together to make things happen. Whether they are planning a community event or helping those in need, they seem to be able to “mobilize the troops” no matter the weather or circumstance. The Greene Rotary “Basket” program is no exception to that.
Each year at Christmas time, the Greene Rotary puts together baskets (well, boxes actually) for needy families. Each one is filled with food, clothing, blankets and wrapped presents.
Families apply for the program by completing an application distributed by service organization. On the form, they list ages, sizes and any specific items they need. The families are then “adopted” by other families and organizations.
While the Greene Rotary club coordinates the effort, they have a lot of help from the rest of the community.
The Greene Community Clothing Bank stashed any donations they received that still had the tags on them. That included clothing, personal care items, household goods and even toys. Those items were then matched against the applications to see what fit.
The banks in Greene also get involved. They hold a blanket drive, competing for the right to brag who collected more for the baskets.
The local school district is an active part of the process as well. This year the schools challenged their students to bring in non-perishable food items. They’re reward for meeting the food drive’s goal was a special assembly. This year, they collected so much food that they ended up donating some of it to the local food pantry.
The Berean Bible Church donated the use of two large rooms for an entire week. The space served as the staging area for the sorting, wrapping, boxing up and delivery of the baskets.
This is where we came in, or at least it’s where we tried to come in. Jessica Lewis, Tyler Murphy, Melissa deCordova and I made the trek to Greene last Thursday to help with all the sorting and wrapping. Only they didn’t need us. Because of the large number of volunteers they had this year both from the Greene Rotary and other local organizations (like the boy scouts), all the real work was done days ahead of schedule.
All that was left for us to do was help carry in the last of the blankets collected by the Greene NBT branch and smile for the camera with those who had done the real work. We won’t even attempt to take any credit.
But a tremendous amount of credit should go to the Greene Rotary for coordinating this important holiday program so efficiently and effectively, and all of the other individuals and organizations which pulled together to make Christmas possible this year for families in need.