As we gear up for the holidays (and South County Community Services staff have been gearing up for the past month or so) I thought I would give a rundown of what we do to support our families and seniors and let you know how you could get involved in the festivities. I hope this isn’t too much of a shock to you, but Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away!
Food
We work with a couple of different groups for Thanksgiving and Christmas food box deliveries. St. Catherine of Siena Church in Portage packs and delivers ingredients for a delicious turkey dinner the week before Thanksgiving, and a homegrown volunteer group, with funding from the Vicksburg Foundation, does the same for Christmas. They both do an amazing job, and we are very lucky to have them. If you are interested in being involved in those groups, or donating holiday food, please let me know!
Gifts
We work with several churches in the area to “adopt” around 60 south county families for Christmas—St. Martin’s, Vicksburg United Methodist, Chapman Memorial Church of the Nazarene, Lakeland Reformed, Fulton Christian Church, and The Bridge have all volunteered to support families this year.
We sign up families for gifting assistance through our Emergency Assistance Program. Everyone who participates has been assessed and has received services from either SCCS or Generous Hands.
This year for the first time we will also be maintaining a virtual Angel Tree of our own on an Amazon wishlist for anyone who wants to help make someone’s Christmas special but isn’t part of a church.
Parties
We will be throwing two Christmas parties this year—one with Generous Hands for the families that our agencies help support with food and financial assistance, and one for seniors who participate in programming at the South County Senior Center or South County Community Services. These are really fun and we can often use extra help to set things up and tear down.
Trees of Life
This is our big holiday fundraiser! Money from this fundraiser goes toward providing emergency assistance funding for the South County area and supporting our holiday programing. In about a month, we will begin putting out our trees throughout South County. You may have seen these trees throughout the South County area… this year we plan to have them up at the Vicksburg Historical Society, Ladies Library of Schoolcraft, and Lawrence Memorial Church in Climax. We will also have one at our building.
When someone donates (usually in memory of or in honor of a loved one) we put an ornament on one of our trees. This not only provides important funding for our Emergency Assistance program throughout the rest of the year, it also allows us to honor people whom we care about.
You can order ornaments at www.southcountycs.com/treesoflife, at the Annual Arts and Crafts Show at Sunset Elementary on November 14, or at Schoolcraft’s Annual Christmas Walk.
The busy season is coming up – I hope you are preparing your own exciting plans for the holidays!
Drew Johnson lives in Kalamazoo and is the Director at South County Community Services. He has a small quarter acre homestead with chickens, bees, and hops (and more!), a wonderful wife, and three energetic children. He can be reached at 649-2901 or ajohnson@southcountycs.com.
For more information on South County Community Services, please check out our Facebook page at facebook.com/southcountycs or visit our website: southcountycs.com.
Free Vaccination Clinic
Speaking of the holidays, are YOU prepared for seeing your relatives show up at your house with runny noses and “allergies”? If you need a little protection from the germs this season, we will be hosting a Walk-In Flu/COVID vaccination clinic at the South County Senior Center on November 17th from 10am to 12pm!
Come out and get vaccinated!
