Working together to Help the community
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ANNE EICKSTADT PHOTO Belvidere Republican
A neighborhood family gets breakfast and lunch bags at General Mills Park.
By Anne Eickstadt
Editor
In an interview with Mayor Mike Chamberlain on April 3, Jennifer Jacky, Chief Executive Officer of the Belvidere Family YMCA was enthusiastic about how Belvidere has pitched in to help with children and frontline workers.
The YMCA is running a childcare service for first responders and nurses.
The IOU Club, deprived of the opportunity to hold their annual Egg Hunt this year, donated eggs to the Y for the kids to have their own egg hunt on April 9.
Maureen Koteles, franchisee of the Belvidere McDonald’s at 1313 N. State St. and 240 W. Chrysler Dr., is providing Happy Meals for the kids once a week.
Janet Paulsen, owner of Twin Towers Embroidery, 1231 Logan Ave., has purchases board games for the kids to play.
“People are reaching out and helping one another to deal with these things,” Mayor Mike said. “So, while we fully expect we will have more sick people and, unfortunately, we will have more people that will succumb to this – at the same time, I think, we are starting to figure it out.
“We are figuring out how to solve the issues of making sure how everyone gets a meal and how we get our kids taken care of every day, and how we have meetings. Challenges necessitate that people respond one way or another. We can either run and hide or we can get on the front line and work together to solve the issues. I am happy to say that I am associated with a whole lot of really terrific people in this community. They are stepping up, they’re helping to solve the most difficult issues that we have, and we will get through this thing together and, hopefully, sooner rather than later.
“I will also say that we still need to follow the rules of social distancing as much as we want to gather. The sooner we embrace all of the distancing rules and be as faithful to those as we can, the sooner we will all be able to be together again.
“I really think that people who have not been affected by others don’t have a family member or been on the front lines as a nurse or a first responder do not really have a grasp but we can make this thing flatten out.
“Thank you, Belvidere. Thank you for helping. Thank you for being the kind of people that you are.”
School Districts 100 and 200 have been distributing food for the kids at the schools but it is not always easy for the children to get to the schools. Therefore, once the federal guidelines allowed it, the YMCA began serving Grab ’n Go breakfast and lunch bags at General Mills Park, 2106 Christi Lane, in a residential area.
“The Northern Illinois Food Bank is providing the food we are distributing,” said Jacky at General Mills Park on April 13. “It is being paid for by an 815-CRT Emergency Needs grant.” The General Mills Park food distribution began on Monday, April 13, the day after Easter. Belvidere Police officers drove a squad car around the neighborhood to announce the distribution, in English and Spanish, to the area residents. It did not take long for kids and moms to visit the park. Some braved the cold, blustery weather to come on foot and other moms drove in and told the distributers how many meals they needed to take home for their kids. On that day, there were waffles in the breakfast bags and a choice of ham and cheese sandwiches, PB&J sandwiches, or sunbutter and jelly sandwiches. Cartons of milk were also provided.
“They gave us 50 meals and we ran out of food,” said Jacky. “We gave it all away. We were only short one meal and the family was going to share. I can ask for more meals to be delivered so no one will go without, but it was a great first day.”