Ishpeming Lions Club steps up for the holidays
The holidays have long been referred to as the season of giving, and that doesn’t always mean bright, shiny packages.
The Ishpeming Lions Club recently donated $1,016 worth of food to the Ishpeming St. Vincent de Paul Society Store, along with a donation of fresh vegetables from the Partridge Creek Intergenerational Farm.
St. Vincent de Paul was gathering food for its Christmas basket program, which has nearly 120 families signed up. The Christmas basket program sees families get eggs, bread, butter and more.
“Each family gets a turkey or a ham and all of the fixings,” said Lisa Niemi, president of the Ishpeming St. Vincent de Paul Conference.
Niemi said that items for kids are much harder to get.
“What we found was that a lot of where we get our food from, those items are not readily available at a discounted price. It then becomes very expensive. (So) I called Kurt,” Niemi said. “I thought it was going to be a bag of oranges and apples, pancake mix and syrup.”
Yet when called on, Ishpeming Lions Club president Kurt Kipling arrived later with a trailer stocked full of food.
“We got the Butterworth elf syrup, some fun for the kids,” he said. “We have juice boxes for the kids, mac and cheese, every kid loves mac n’ cheese. There are cases of apples and cases of oranges.”
Partridge Creek Farm founder Dan Perkins also donated a harvest of fresh lettuce to donate to the families in need.
“Fresh foods, especially produce, are hard to get and hard to store,” said Niemi. “So this is great, and our families are going to be so happy. They will be pumped. People are very generous this time of year. Per week we don’t know how many families are going to be coming in. I think last month, November, (there were) 122 families that came in. That’s not double families, those are 122 households in Ishpeming.”
With the large donation, St. Vincent de Paul will even have enough to give bigger families a bit more, as well as giving out personal care items.
“There are some bigger families with four or five children so we will give them a bit more,” said Niemi. “This year we also did personal care bags too, so every adult will get a bag with deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and that sort of thing.”
Kipling was impressed with everyone involved in the process to get food to those who need it in Ishpeming.
“It is amazing how many volunteers come by from start to finish. Like a cog in a wheel,” Kipling said.
We applaud all those who were involved in this effort, including Super One Foods. During Christmas, we are all in such a rush to make sure everything is as close to perfect as possible, and we may forget that our neighbors may not have enough on the table for their festivities.
It’s caring locals like these who make our community a better place.