Story Share by: Monica Cole, Whitman, MA
My name is Monica, and I am the owner of Jans Towing & Recovery in Whitman.
My good news was our recent Easter Basket donations to families in need.
Last week, during a company meeting, my staff decided to do a pay it forward day. Normally, we would have ordered lunch for the local police department, which would have supported our officers, and also supported the local businesses in our town. After a brief discussion, I came up with the idea to pay it forward to the many local families that have been effected as a direct result of the economy and job loss. Knowing that the biggest struggle to parents is the loss of income, combined with the added stress of children home from school, we realized that Easter would also place a hardship when it came to the stay home order issued and the need to shop for Easter.
So, we put our heads together and decided to make 100 Easter Baskets, complete with chocolate bunny, filled eggs, candy and stickers or coloring books – and donate them to any family in need – at no cost! We were able to reserve an Easter Bunny costume to have the Easter Bunny available to help give out baskets. The local Shane Gives Thanks Food Pantry in Carver heard about our efforts, and donated 100 egg coloring kits to hand out also! We chose Friday, April 10th as our give away day. We posted online in the Whitman Hub about our donations and asked that any family in need reach out to reserve a basket that could be picked up or delivered.
Within the first 3 hours, we reserved 90 baskets. Realizing that the need was greater than the 100 baskets we had originally intended on making, we then headed out to make an additional 75 baskets! Our event concluded with 175 baskets picked up and 27 additional baskets delivered by our Easter Bunny!!
Our event even got the attention of the Channel 5 crew who sent a photographer and we were featured on their segment 5 for good on 5!! And we had several local businesses that came out to thank us for stepping up to support the local community!!
If we were to win one of the prizes, we have all decided to save that prize to use for next years Easter Basket event – to make it an annual give back to our local community!
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