Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
Rotary Club of Yelm President-Elect Derrick Platt and Club Treasurer Sandi Hanson know the importance of giving back to the local community and providing for less privileged students in the area.
For the ninth year in the organization’s history, the Rotary Club of Yelm will host its “10 Weeks of Summer” food program, which provided 400 bags of food each week throughout the summer of 2024. This year, Hanson said the club has a goal of providing 4,000 bags of food to less privileged students within the Nisqually Valley region.
Providing 4,000 bags of food doesn’t come easy or cheap, which led the Rotary Club of Yelm to reach out to the community for donations in the form of canned tuna or canned chili. Hanson said those are two of the more expensive food items in its “10 Weeks of Summer” program.
Rotary Club of Yelm is also accepting monetary donations toward the summer food program, as there is a $15,000 deficit as the annual project kicks into gear for 2025.
“This year, we need about $58,000 to run our summer food program, and right now we’re sitting at $45,000 collected,” Platt told the Nisqually Valley News on Saturday, May 3.
“We’re about $15,000 short,” Hansen added. “One of the big events we do in May is our chili and tuna drive. This is our third year doing that drive, and our goal is to get 4,000 cans of chili and 4,000 cans of tuna during the month of May, which would help us throughout the whole summer. Those are two of the highest cost items, and it would definitely help with the money.”
The tuna and chili drive launched at the start of the month, and the two Rotary Club of Yelm members said the “10 Weeks of Summer” program could not happen without the support and collaboration from local businesses.
“You’ll see them all over town. There’s signs everywhere. The community help has been great,” Hansen said. “This is our ninth year of doing the summer food program, and if it wasn’t for the community, we couldn’t pull this off. This is a huge undertaking for a small club, and we go out for as many grants as we can. We’ve gotten grants from the Nisqually Tribe, the Cowlitz Tribe. We’ve received grants from Walmart in the past, too. It’s very much a community effort to make this happen.”
Aside from grant support from local organizations and entities, Platt highlighted some of the individuals within the local community who have stepped up by increasing their efforts toward the chili and tuna drive.
“Lacey Gregory has recently joined the Rotary Club, and she’s undertaken the chili and tuna drive. She’s been a big help with talking to local businesses and establishing dropoff locations and explaining the need we have,” Platt said. “Brandi Worthy (with Worthy Coffee Co in Roy) and her bingo food drive event will be great, too. We’re appreciative to have the support of our community.”
While the tuna drive will conclude at the end of May, the Rotary Club of Yelm seeks volunteers for the “10 Weeks of Summer” program. According to the YelmRotary.org website, the organization had 65 volunteers who donated over 800 hours of volunteer work in 2024.
“We’re looking for volunteers for the summer,” she said. “We usually get 20 to 30 volunteers every week helping us bag, so that process goes very quickly. We also get volunteers to help us distribute, and that’s also a big help.”
The volunteers, in a coordinated effort, will help sort and pack each of the food bags this summer prior to distribution. Volunteers will also be positioned at the four distribution sites at 10 a.m. every Tuesday morning for a two-hour stay. These locations can be found at Clearwood, the Nisqually Pines, Yelm City Park and in Rainier.
“Our goal is to serve the underserved, the lower income in the community. They can come by, and their kids will receive bags of food. You don’t have to sign up for it, either. You can just come,” Hanson said. “When we started this program, one of the things we found is some of the kids didn’t want school to end because they were getting free or reduced lunch or breakfast. They were worried about where their meals were going to come from during the summer, so we wanted to step in.”
Platt added, “It’s rewarding to hear stories about people who have come to pick up food bags, and told us that their kids wouldn’t have food this week if it wasn’t for us doing this program. There’s a grandparent who took on seven kids, and he’s retired. He doesn’t have money to feed seven different kids, so they were probably going to go hungry most of the time. Because of this program, they’re able to have a good amount of food.”
For more information and updates about Rotary Club of Yelm’s “10 Weeks of Summer” program, visit its website at yelmrotary.org.
