A Case for Giving! The Taste of the Town is celebrating its 14th year and the 2020 Non Profit Organizations to receive funds raised from this auction are:
Streatorland Community Food Pantry:
The Streatorland Community Food Pantry is a 501(c)
(3) not for profit organization serving Streator and its
surrounding area for over 37 years. The food pantry provides
food and supplies to individuals and families in need. Clients
can visit the food pantry once a month. Clients need to have
proof of residency, photo I.D. and verify monthly income
eligibility which is based on 185% of the Federal poverty
guideline as determined by the State of Illinois and varies
depending upon the number of people in the household. The
food pantry recently switched to a client-choice facility which
means that the clients get a choice of the food available
instead of a pre-packed box of groceries. When clients leave
the pantry, they leave with an overflowing grocery cart.
The food pantry runs solely with volunteers. Food is either
purchased with monetary donations or food is donated from
grocery stores and food suppliers like Aldi, Kroger, Walmart,
US Foods and River Bend Foodbank. The food pantry serves
on average 250 families a month and provides them with over
12,000 meals a month. The number of clients served each
month has increased and donations have been decreasing.
Thank you to all who support our cause.
Streator Lions Club:
The Streator Lions Club, which bas been active in Streator
since 1953, is part of the largest service organization in the
world, The Lions Club International. Since its inception, the Lions
Club has been dedicated to helping people in our community who
through no fault of their own are less fortunate than we are. That
includes, but is not limited to, those who are physically, mentally,
or financially less fortunate. At the first national convention of the
Lions Club in 1925 Helen Keller challenged the Lions to become
“knights of the blind.” Today, there are approximately 46,000
Lions Clubs with over 1.4 million members. This makes Lions
Clubs International the world’s largest service club organization.
On the local level, we help many people in different ways. We
provide hospital equipment to those who need it on a temporary
basis. We provide free eye and hearing exams and purchase eye
glasses and hearing aids for those who may not have other means
to get them. We provide food baskets for low income families
at Easter time and we have built shelters in the city parks. For
50 years, we hosted the Streator High School Athletic Banquet
and have helped for over 35 years with the Streator High School
Academic Banquet. The motto of the Lions Club is “WE SERVE.”
Within the past few years, Lions Club International celebrated
100 years of service. To mark that milestone, all individual Lions
Clubs were requested to complete a legacy project as a tribute to
long standing service to their communities. Our local Lions Club
decided to construct a handicapped dock at the lake at Marilla
Park for fishing or other activities. To our knowledge, there is not
a handicapped fishing dock in the area. The assistance provided by
the Taste of the Town event would allow us to fulfill this objective.
Streator Girls Softball:
The Streator Girls Softball Board is a volunteer, non profit
organization, providing a structured fast pitch softball league
for girls aged 6-15 years old. We are proud that our league
prepares strong ball players to go on to compete at the high
school level, travel level, and even the college level of play.
The past 2 years, we have been very busy raising money
for a few major ballpark upgrades. We completed our now handicapped
accessible bathrooms just in time to kick off the
2018 season. After a successful spring and summer season
of nightly games and tournaments, which includes teams
traveling to Streator from surrounding areas, we began to
tackle our next big project: repurposing a garage into a bigger,
more efficient concession stand.
We would like to thank the Taste of the Town committee for
selecting our organization so that we can continue to provide
the community with many more seasons of softball fun!
Streator Family YMCA
The Streator Family YMCA is a 501(c)(3) not for profit
organization. The YMCA’s areas of focus are Youth
Development, Social Responsibility and Healthy Living. The
YMCA will be using Taste of the Town funds to start a Sports
Equipment Exchange Program and Foster Child Membership
Program. The YMCA serves around 500 area youth in youth
sports each year with hundreds more being served in other
volunteer led leagues in the area. The Sports Equipment
Exchange Program will allow participants access to gently
used sports equipment with the ability to exchange it each
sports season. By eliminating this barrier of participation,
we are hoping to increase participation in youth leagues
in the area by assisting parents with the affordability of
participation.
We would also use the funds to offer foster children in the
area a free annual youth membership and a program credit to
allow them the opportunity to utilize the YMCA. This would
allow the foster children to participate in all the YMCA’s Free
Member Events as well as credit to participate in one or more
programs that have fees associated with them. We would
also like to give each foster a YMCA care package so they see
the YMCA as a safe place and feel comfortable coming here.
Thank you for your support!