Salvation Army thankful for four community donation
nfmneighbor@breezenewspapers.com
Salvation Army officials said recent donations from four local communities and a local women’s group will make a significant difference for hundreds of Lee County families this holiday season.
Meagan Spears, resource management director for The Salvation Army, was a guest at the Pine Lakes Coffee Social Saturday, Nov. 22, and left with two big checks. One was for $5,000 from “A Day Of Caring,” and the other a $1,000 check from the Pine Lakes Women’s Club.
“A Day of Caring is a charity that four communities — The Heritage, Lake Fairways, Tara Woods and Pine Lakes — who have come together to support efforts,” said one of the organizers, Joe Monks. “It supports The Salvation Army, Fort Myers Soup Kitchen, The Fort Myers Rescue Mission, Hispanic Services of Catholic Charities and Wake Up America.”
Spears said the donations the Salvation Army received are critical to her organization.
“The Day of Caring Group is so good to us,” she said. “They have been doing this for at least 15 years and they are valuable partners. Their donation is essential to our holiday operations. The monies they are able to raise allows us to provide hundreds of families with food baskets.”
Those baskets, she said, include a turkey and all of the trimmings for a holiday meal, so the family can cook the meal and enjoy the meal together in their own home.
“The Pine Lakes Women’s Club is a new friend of ours this year, and we’re just so thankful that they chose to entrust their gift to us,” Spears said. “We will make sure it will get to the right place.”
Spears said they have registered 3,200 families in Lee County.
“If you think of it, the average size of a family is four, so that’s nearly 13,000 people roughly,” she said. “And that’s a conservative estimate.”
She said the Caring Group and the Women’s Club support is also invaluable to the other agencies they support.
“We’re all working towards the same goal,” she said. “I know all the entities that receive their support are thankful. Every bit of assistance allows us to do what we do in the community.”
Spears said special thanks go to Pat Rothoff, president of the Women’s Club, and organizers from the communities including Joe and Nilda Monks, Bob and Pat Hawkins, John and Irene D’Amico, Joe Novella, Adele Heft, Barbara Hood, and Sue O’Donnell.
“The communities are very giving,” said Nilda Monks. “They rise to the occasion no matter what the economy does.”
She is also helping to organize Bell Ringers for The Salivation Army at Del Tura Publix.
“This is our fourth year there, we started after Hurricane Katrina,” she said.
She said she and her husband had returned from Mississippi after volunteering there after the hurricane.
“I wasn’t just going to sit on my couch,” she said of that journey. “We then noted no one was bell ringing at the Del Tura Publix and we all started there.”
She said she had a call from Rosemarie Furlong, a Eucharistic Minister at St. Francis Xavier Church.
“She said, I can’t ring the bells, but how can I help?”
Furlong ended up bringing a frozen turkey to the check presentation breakfast for Spears to take for the Army.
“We just didn’t have the stuffing done,” said Joe Monks.
“These checks and other donations from our Kettle Bell Ringing has helped us top $100,000 for The Salvation Army,” he added.