Good news for people who care about people and community…
Thank You… for Being YOU
Tell everyone you know – free summer lunches are back for kids!!
Summer’s almost here, and to the fantastic kids in our community it means free summer lunches through Great Northern Services while they’re out of school.
The fact is that 1 in 6 children in the U.S. faces hunger. Thanks to your donations of time and money more of our kids will be fed and in more locations than ever before!
- In Weed… at Bel Air Park and at Mountain View Apartments
- In Mount Shasta… at Mount Shasta Elementary School
- In McCloud… at McCloud Elementary School
- In Dunsmuir… outside near the Dunsmuir Park & Rec building
- In Montague… at Montague Elementary School
Our Summer Lunch service kicks off on June 19th and runs every weekday through August 11th. Most sites will have activities for the kids on some days after lunch as well.
Keep an eye out for complete information in our local papers, on Facebook, and at gnservices.org over the next several weeks. Do you have some spare time to help feed our kids? They’d love to have you on board!
Call GNS Community Services Director Heather Solus at 530-938-4115, extension 128, and she’ll help you help the children.
Profile in caring: Heather Solus is helping you help others
When Heather Solus joined the GNS Community Services team in 2015, she quickly developed what she described as a “new perspective” on the role of non-profit organizations in Siskiyou County.
“As I learned the details of our programs, I saw how directly we are able to help people with what they need, which is critical in a county like ours that doesn’t have a lot of resources,” she said.
Now, two years later, Heather is the GNS Community Services Director. Under her leadership, established programs are thriving and growing, and her new ideas are bearing fruit.
Heather credits a broad network of partner, staff, and volunteer support for her success in expanding the number of community residents benefiting from GNS services, such as…
- Twice as many people are receiving free fresh produce in the Mount Shasta Fresh program – 410 households last season!
- Senior Snow Removal participation has nearly doubled, which means 120 residences were plowed 10 times last winter.
- The Summer Food program has grown from feeding kids summer lunches at one site in 2015 to six south county locations in 2017. We’ll serve more than 14,000 lunches to hungry kids this summer!
- The Snack Bag program, which sends kids home for shorter holiday breaks with nutritious food, is now feeding children in four cities. That meant that 867 children received a week supply of food over the last school year.
Meanwhile, Heather launched an entirely new project to feed hungry kids.
When she was a grade school teacher, she saw first-hand that kids were going hungry throughout the school day, “and you can’t teach a hungry child,” she said.
Heather thought it would be the right thing to do to have food available to kids who need it during the school day – so she created the GNS Mini Food Pantries program. Teachers in two south county schools were able to feed more than 4,300 food items to hungry children during school days last year, and schools county-wide are eager to begin participating over the next couple of years.
“I’m grateful and happy about how things are turning out,” Heather said with a smile.
You too can make a positive impact with Heather and help feed hungry community members of all ages. Call GNS Development Director Marie Wells at 530-938-4115, extension 121, to find out how.
Thank you for making a difference!
Volunteers and donors of all kinds help sustain GNS programs and services, and keep them growing to fill increasing needs. Interestingly, people have all kinds of reasons for supporting our work.
These stories illustrate just a few:
- Mike Solano said he wanted to own a business from the time he was quite young because he wanted to be able to help his small rural community out and hire lots of people at a good wage so they could raise their families here. Mike donates to GNS because “in time of need, Great Northern is there for the people in our community” – a commitment close to his heart and one of the very reasons he has a business.
- As a mother, Sue Tavalero can think of nothing worse than her own children going hungry. As a Siskiyou County resident, she knows that children are the future of our community, and that to grow them healthy, strong, and smart, they need to be well fed. Her answer? Sue has been the anchor volunteer for the GNS Summer Food program in Weed’s Bel Air Park since the very first year. And she’ll be back this summer to do it all over again. For the kids.
- Laurel Kessler is new to the area and volunteered with the GNS summer lunch program last year to meet people. She got to meet great people and said it was fun to volunteer alongside the boy scouts. “The boys were so surprisingly open and sociable and enjoyable to talk with. Serving others really served me.”
What motivates you to help those in need around you? Do you have the time, talent, or treasure to help make a real difference in someone’s life? Call GNS Development Director Marie Wells at 530-938-4115, extension 121,to find out how simple it is to start helping your neighbors in need.
Sold!
Sasha Hight fell in love with a multi media painting, (“Rasta Fish,”) while attending a meeting at Great Northern Services.
Thanks to her donation to the Butteville art program the painting is now hers.
The Student Art Project aims to showcase student art and provide financial resources for Siskiyou County school art programs.
For information about participation in the Student Art Project, call GNS Office Manager Nichole McCown at 530-938-4115, extension 115.
