(from left to right) Savannah Headley, Justice Haines and Emily Ventrone gather toys to put into a bag to distribute to families during Saturday’s Three Rivers Lions Club food and toy distribution event.
By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
THREE RIVERS — A tradition that goes back more than a decade continued once again this past weekend on the east side of Three Rivers.
The Three Rivers Lions Club, along with an army of 50 volunteers from around the area, held their annual food box and toy distribution Saturday morning, helping over 140 families from around the county and beyond with food and toys for the holiday season.
“It’s probably one of the most fun times of the year for us,” Jeff Mayuiers, Three Rivers Lions Club President, said. “You see so many people in need, and being able to fulfill that and make them so they have a merry Christmas and a good Christmas. We just love doing this.”
The distribution began at 8 a.m. sharp on Saturday, with the line stretching all the way from the club’s meeting hall off of Sixth Avenue, onto Sixth Avenue and all the way onto M-60 when the event started. While there were lulls in those showing up for the distribution throughout the four-hour timeframe, there was a little bit of a consistent flow of traffic for most of the morning.
Those who came to the distribution had to sign up ahead of time; in previous years, this was done through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, but due in part to the retirement of the person that used to help with that at the local DHHS office, that responsibility fell on the St. Joseph County United Way, and in turn Executive Director Kelly Hostetler, this year, according to Julie Mayuiers, the Three Rivers Lions Club treasurer.
“She’s been great to work with, she’s very supportive, she sends letters to us and then we send out the letters,” Julie Mayuiers said.
Food boxes were prepared by Lions Club members prior to the distribution, and consisted of cereal, a bag of potatoes, a bag of apples, onions, non-perishable food items that were collected via Three Rivers schools, and a certificate for meat from Harding’s Market, which Julie Mayuiers explained has been a newer tradition for the event.
“This is so they can buy what they need when they need it,” Julie Mayuiers said. “We found that difficult with the price of turkeys going up a few years ago, and then if we buy X amount of turkeys and hams and they come through and we were out of ham and they didn’t want turkey, we couldn’t help them.”
Along with the donations of canned goods, Julie Mayuiers said they used donations the club received to cover what they needed after everything was sorted out. This year, donations were done a little bit differently, with a little over $3,000 coming from local business and organizations who used to advertise in the club’s annual Christmas newspaper, which was not published this year.
“Two years ago, we only made $43 by the time it’s printed and all the expenses. This year, we took the list from that year and sent out letters explaining how much we made, saying if you could help out with any monetary donation or food or whatever, and we got quite a bit of money donated back that way,” Julie said.
Out of 100 businesses and organizations contacted, she added, about “a third” of them were returned. After the relative success of this letter campaign, she said it could return again for next year’s distribution.
In addition to the food distribution, the club did a toy distribution, which was assisted mainly by members of Three Rivers High School’s varsity and junior varsity girls’ basketball teams. It was the first year in nearly a decade that the toy distribution was not accomplished with the help of the St. Joseph County Marine Corps League, which had disbanded within the last year. Despite that, though, Julie Mayuiers said she enjoyed having the basketball teams there to help this year.
“They’re great girls. They’re into this. They were here by 7:30 this morning and we had 25 this year, both the varsity and JV,” Julie said.
Carley Shoesmith, the head coach of the varsity team, also participated in the distribution when she played basketball at TRHS back in 2010, one of the first years of the distribution, and some other times while an assistant head coach. She said it was great to continue the legacy of the teams helping out with the distribution and having it come full circle for her as a coach.
“It’s important during this time of season to give back, and so just getting the girls together as a team, being able to help and give back to the community I think is very important, and I know they had a lot of fun,” Shoesmith said. “I think my very first year, my senior year, was the first year they did it, so coming back on this end of it is really cool.”
Mayuiers said the club is planning on thanking the team for their support, and will show support to them at a home basketball game after the first of the year, more than likely making an arch for the team to run through at the beginning of the game.
Overall, Jeff Mayuiers was pleased with how things went, and looked forward to future distributions to come.
“Out of all the projects we have, this one, for Julie and I, is the one closest to our hearts,” Jeff Mayuiers said. “We love giving back, and we want to make sure kids have a good Christmas.”
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@threeriversnews.com.