A helpful program
Help Them To Hope organization delivers food, toys Thursday
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Friday, December 19, 2008 10:55 AM PST
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| Food baskets from Help Them To Hope sit at the Southeast Oregon Regional Food Bank in Ontario Friday. The organization delivered food and toys to needy families across the valley Thursday. |
ONTARIO — It takes weeks to get everything together.
The donated food.
The money to purchase more food and toys.
Then the volunteers behind the Help Them To Hope effort sort the food and the toys and designate the boxes for the numerous needy families across the area.
Yet only two and half hours elapsed Thursday from the time the first box was lifted into the vehicle of a volunteer delivery driver until the HTTH warehouse was empty.
“It all went pretty smooth,” Gene Rhinehart, co-chairman of HTTH with Fran McLean, said.
“Drivers started coming about 8 a.m., and we were done,” he said.
Rhinehart also said the organization had enough drivers to make deliveries.
Boxes were divided by families, with boxes for two to three families per car or five to six families per pickup.
For Vale- Nyssa- and Weiser-area residents the boxes were loaded up in school buses, which were driven to central locations, and the food was distributed from there.
Each family received three apple boxes full of food and, for those who needed them, a box of toys. In addition to the donated food, the Help Them To Hope Committee provided such things as a turkey, sugar, flour, rice and other staples. Also, fruit baskets and gifts were delivered to residents of nursing homes, and with those included, about 800 families were served, about the same as last year.
“The public really did a good job of getting us food and toys,” Rhinehart said. “With the economy the way it is, the canned food came in a lot better than expected.” Actually, not all the boxes were delivered for various reasons, but the intended recipients are able to pick them up at the WICAP, on the Idaho side and at the Southeast Oregon Regional Food Bank, for families on the Oregon side. Officials at both agencies are attempting to make contact with people whose names are on the boxes. Also, extra food donated to Help Them to Hope was left with the agencies to be distributed by their programs. Among the unsung heroes who assisted Help Them To Hope are Bellows Rental and the Fruitland Lions, who donate tables and chairs, Rhinehart said.
