By BOB SHRALUKA
WZBD.com
A recent donation of approximately 7,000 gift boxes was welcomed by officials of United Way of Adams County, which has taken over sponsorship of the Clothe a Kid program in the wake of the March closing of Love INC., adding it to United Way’s annual Angel Tree effort.
According to United Way Director Jessica Thieme, the boxes were discovered in the former Dean’s Foods site, located in Industrial Park, which is being prepared for the startup of The Country Butcher, a beef processing plant.
“Mr. (Riggs) Florence (owner-operator of The Country Butcher) called us about the gift boxes. They were found and given to him so he donated them to us,” Thieme explained.
With the help of some volunteers (from left in photo, Kenny Ketzler, Corey Affolder, and Janelle Young), the gift boxes were brought to United Way and have been stored in an adjacent building. United Way’s office is located in a building on the site of the onetime Gerber’s supermarket off E. Monroe St.
“Our landlord, Eric Stockman, is allowing us to store them in the building next to us, so we are very thankful to him; that’s been such a blessing,” Thieme noted.
With the closing of Love INC, its Clothe A Kid program is now being sponsored by United Way, which already operated the Christmas-time Angel Tree, and also will continue to partner with Shop with a Cop and the Salvation Army.
“All applications (for both programs) now will have to come through us. So it will be a much bigger project and we will be doing a lot of wrapping,” Thieme said.
Some 2,500 gifts were wrapped last year for the Angel Tree.