🎥 The cupboard is no longer bare at Community Assistance Center

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

The shelves were “really bare,” according to Laurie Mortinger, co-director of the Community Assistance Center, 208 E. 12th, Hays.

Now, the shelves are stacked high with donations of non-perishable food items thanks to Trick Or Treat So Others Can Eat, an annual effort organized by Hays High DECA students.

This is the second year HHS senior Maddie Keller has participated.

“There are about 30 of us from DECA and a few other Hays High students helping tonight,” Keller said. “We go around the different neighborhoods in Hays and collect non-perishable items from residents. We get a lot during this season because Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up.”

“During the holidays, people seem to be even more generous,” said Mortinger as she loaded flats of canned peas onto a cart. “They really came through. This is great.”

“We’ve been so low, we’ve been purchasing food the past few weeks, spending about $1,000 a week.” Cash donations were also handed over during Tuesday night’s event. About $300 had been collected by 8:15 p.m. according to Mortinger.

HHS DECA McKenzie Hoover — “This looks like Christmas, a yummy Christmas,” said volunteer McKenzie Hoover, HHS DECA junior, as she sat in the midst of a huge pile of donated foods.

Twenty-seven groups of local volunteers canvassed the town, bringing in bags and boxes filled with everything from peanut butter to cereal donated by Hays residents. Then the DECA students and other volunteers at CAC unpacked and sorted it all. “I won’t have to lift weights tomorrow,” joked one DECA member as he unloaded a cart.

McKenzie Hoover, HHS DECA junior, was working the food drive for the first time. “This looks like Christmas, a yummy Christmas!,” Hoover remarked while sitting in the midst of a huge pile of donated goods .

Two regular CAC volunteers, Barbara Basinger and Bob Berens, got a head start. They distributed notices about the food drive to 39 local businesses and then went back to retrieve the goods donated at those locations. “We got more than 500 items before today,” Basinger said as the pair volunteered again Tuesday night to sort and count cans.

Low-income Ellis County families can receive a week’s worth of food six times a year.

Non-perishable foods and cash may still be donated to the Community Assistance Center through Oct. 31. For more information, call the CAC at (785) 625-9110.