Monthly Archives: March 2018

LCCF Offers Ministerial Association Match

To celebrate and support the charitable efforts of the LaGrange and Shipshewana Ministerial associations, the LaGrange County Community Foundation is offering a matching program through April 30.

Gifts made to the Community Foundation’s Good Samaritan Fund through April 30 will be set aside for a matching grant to the LaGrange Ministerial Association and Shipshewana Ministerial Association. The Community Foundation pledges to match gifts to each association up to a total of $2000.

For example, if local donors give $2,500 for the benefit of an association, the Community Foundation will match $2,000 and grant that ministerial association a total of $4,500.

The matching grant will support the LaGrange Ministerial Association’s efforts to provide emergency support to residents who find themselves without shelter and need a place to stay.  The association assists adults whose lives have been disrupted through a change in employment, forced to find a new living situation or are seeking to rebuild their lives after imprisonment or addiction.

The matching grant also will support the efforts of the Shipshewana Ministerial Association. The churches of the association work together to provide emergency financial support to local families facing an immediate crisis. They also coordinate the Big Give program in November, providing area families with food and clothing.

Checks submitted to the LaGrange County Community Foundation during this time and for this purpose must specify on the memo line – Good Samaritan Fund – and indicate “LaGrange” or “Shipshewana.”

 

We Give Thanks grant awarded to area food pantries

Scott Emergency Food Pantry coordinator Eunice Gagnon, left, and Scott United Methodist Church pastor Christopher White, received a $2,000 grant from the LaGrange County Community Foundation in February to support local food distribution for families in need.

Clothes and Food Basket, Scott Emergency Food Pantry receive assistance

Thanks to the generosity of many local donors, the LaGrange County Community Foundation  awarded two organizations a total of $10,936 in February as part of the foundation’s We Give Thanks matching program to support local food distribution.

Over the holidays in 2017, the LCCF Board of Directors offered to match local donations to the We Give Thanks campaign “dollar-for-dollar” up to a maximum match of $5,000. As in past campaigns, local donors, still deeply concerned about the welfare of families stepped up to the challenge.

Organizations who received grants this year include the Clothes and Food Basket in LaGrange for $8,936 and the Scott Emergency Food Pantry at the Scott United Methodist Church in Shipshewana for $2,000.

Open two days a week, the Clothes and Food Basket provides food, clothes and hygiene products to needy individuals in LaGrange County. They also operate the Christmas Bureau which provides assistance during the holidays. During the Clothes and Food Basket’s 2017 Christmas Bureau they served 369 clients and their families, assisting a total of 1,497 individuals. During that time they provided fresh fruit, towels, sheets, hats, gloves, undergarment, children’s toys for Christmas, and a ham or turkey.

The Scott Emergency Food Pantry provides additional assistance for county residents. The congregation operates the emergency food pantry to help the needs of those who have lost a job, been laid off, on sick leave, death of a spouse, etc. They offer non-perishable items and a voucher for milk, bread, eggs and a pound of hamburger. The pantry is open on Wednesday afternoons.