Tag Archives: food pantries

St Vincent DePaul and Food for Freedom Bring Kiwanis Update


Monday Morning
We had 19 members and eight guests who joined us for an early breakfast on Monday morning. Our guests were four Fondy High Key Clubbers, Katie Bucher, Luckie Cha, Emily Nett and Bridget Stollfus, our guest speaker, Danny Loomans and his dad, Mitch Loomans, and our District Governor Elect Lynn Messer along with current Lt. Gov. Tonya Alling. Gary Ring announced again that there is a District Brewer Game Outing on September 16th if anyone is interested. Gary Miller is looking for volunteers for an InterClub to the FDL Noon Club on August 14th to help celebrate their 95th anniversary. More details next week. “Happy Bucks” were offered by Pete Vercouteren for the end of a successful EAA last week and Lt. Gov. Tonya Alling for our Club being a model Club plus Gov. Elect Lynn Messer’s upcoming term. Gary Miller has an “Honor Buck” for his wife that he’ll present the next time she gets to one of our meetings. Marlin Towne won the 50/50 Raffle drawing (second week in a row), and he drew the Nine of Hearts. Again, that wasn’t a winner but it took one more card out of the deck. Next week’s drawing will only have 34 cards in the deck with seven pay cards and a pot of over $440.

Danny Loomans, Food for Freedom – July 30
Danny Loomans joined us on Monday morning to tell us about a project he’s undertaking to try and break a Guinness Book of World Record plus supply a lot food for our local food pantries. Danny has taken on the task of collecting over 600,000 lbs. of food in a 24 hour period. Danny has set the dates of May 25, 2013 through May 26, 2013 for this huge undertaking. As Danny explained the size of this endeavor the work that needs to be done was overwhelming. The Sponsorship/Volunteer Proposal lays out the process that Danny is going to follow as he embarks on putting this project together. Our Club will be discussing anything we can do to help with Danny’s monumental undertaking as well as encourage our Key Clubs to also consider if they might be able to help in this record breaking attempt. Check out Danny’s website for more details and progress on the event.

Carol Braun, St. Vincent DePaul – July 23
Carol Braun joined us on Monday morning to bring us up to date on St. Vincent de Paul’s move into their new store on North Peters Avenue. In August of 2011 it was announced that the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Fond du Lac had agreed to purchase the old Copp’s Grocery store for their new Thrift Store. The transaction closed in late September 2011 and the effort to remodel and move into their new location began in earnest. Over 200 volunteers put in over 400 hours of time to get the store ready for their March 2012 opening. A major funding source for the Fond du Lac St. Vincent de Paul Society is the St. Vincent de Paul Store. The thrift store accepts community donations of quality used clothing, household goods, and furniture and sells them at greatly reduced prices. It provides items at no cost to people in times of crisis. The profits from the store provide about half of the Society’s funds for financial assistance to the poor. Additional funds come from money given directly to the Society through its annual fund raising appeal, estates, grants and other gifts. As a totally volunteer Society, administrative costs are minimal, and 93% of the money raised goes to serve the needy in Fond du Lac County.