Over the course of approximately two months, the club provided 6100 meals and collected over 30,000 dollars to help defray the cost.
The Friendswood Rotary Club, in conjunction with Friendswood Youth Baseball and the City of Friendswood provided prepared meals to people in our community over a 2 month period beginning in March. Over the course of those 2 months, more than 6100 meals were provided. Those receiving meals included families in need, healthcare workers, senior citizens, residents at local retirement communities, and first responders.
This program also served as a means of supporting local businesses in Friendswood. All meals provided were purchased from local restaurants. This was purposeful support to help these businesses keep their doors open and keep employees on the payroll. The cost for each meal averaged just under 10.00 dollars, and as such, we were able to put a little over 60,000.00 dollars into the community.
Alyssa Tjagen from Friendswood Youth Baseball adds “We know Friendswoodians have big hearts, and we hope that this program will succeed in helping those in need, as well as be an opportunity for people who want to help serve others during this crisis.”
The program was started with an initial infusion of 30,000.00 dollars from the Friendswood Rotary Club Foundation. An additional 30,000.00 dollars was collected since March from local individuals and businesses. Major donors included Hometown Bank of Friendswood, Texas-New Mexico Power, Texan Bank, Shell, and AllState Insurance. This project could not have been a success without the support of the local community.
Dedicated volunteers spent approximately 3 hours per day, 3 days per week receiving the meals from restaurant vendors, preparing the packages to be handed out to drive-up folks, and delivery drivers, and then handing out meals to drive-up folks who picked up their meals at Renwick Baseball Park.
A secondary part of the program was to make a 5000.00 dollar donation to the Food Pantry at Mary Queen Catholic Church. As noted by Club President Robin Hall, “That institution is often the provider of last resort for struggling families and people who have specific food requirements that our meal program can’t accommodate. We want to help keep the pantry shelves full.”
