The Center Grove area resident recently received guardianship of three young children and was concerned about making sure the kids had a good Christmas, including a good meal to share that day.
Patricia Hughes received the children ages 6, 3 and 1 earlier this year. At 9:45 a.m. Saturday morning, she received a box of food that would ensure the family could have a hearty Christmas dinner.
“We are trying to make sure we have a good Christmas,” she said. “It will help us a lot. We are very thankful.”
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Hughes and her family were the recipients of a food delivery from the Good Cheer Fund. The Good Cheer Fund is a Johnson County holiday tradition dating back to 1921. Baskets are dropped off at local households for families in need and contain fresh food such as ham, chicken, eggs and cheese. In addition, the deliveries include enough canned and non-perishable food so people can eat for days after the holiday.
Community members and businesses donate to the fund starting around Thanksgiving, and that money is used to buy fresh groceries. Schools around the county hold food drives and collect most of the perishables that are part of each delivery.
About 800 baskets will be delivered this year. On Saturday, the Fraternal Order of Police and their families delivered about 250 boxes of food to families on the north side of Johnson County. Other families will receive deliveries Tuesday.
Friday night, volunteers in Greenwood helped sort canned goods and nonperishable items, distributing them into the boxes. Then, Saturday morning, refrigerated items such as milk were packed by volunteers, who then loaded the boxes into their vehicles and delivered to a list of addresses, an effort coordinated by the Johnson County Fraternal Order of Police.
More food was sorted Saturday in Franklin.
More than 20 of the baskets went to the Winterbrook neighborhood in the Center Grove area, where volunteers kept knocking on doors to deliver the food. At least two weren’t home, so volunteers worked to call the recipients. Some families who received baskets had filled out an application with the Good Cheer Fund, and some were recommended by others to receive food.
Dawanna Williams, 32, welcomed the food delivery at her home in the Winterbrook neighborhood. Her 7-year-old daughter has a disability, and Williams can only work part-time while caring for her daughter. The delivery helped them fill out their food for the holidays.
Similar stories played out Saturday all across the northside of the county. The number of applicants seeking baskets was down, but ticked back up as delivery day approached. Volunteers were receiving photos of more applications even as they sorted food, said Doug Roller, a Greenwood police officer and coordinator for the Greenwood delivery.
The Johnson County Fraternal Order of Police have organized deliveries in Greenwood, the Center Grove area and Bargersville since at least the late 1970s, and Roller remembers participating in the annual canned food drive as a student at Webb Elementary School, then volunteering to pack boxes of food and make deliveries when he was old enough, he said.
Among the volunteers were nine members of the Indiana Astros little league team. Greenwood police officer Jason Holtzleiter has helped lead the team in its efforts to volunteer and organize deliveries, and go out to the community to make the deliveries the past four years.
This year, Enterprise donated a 15-passenger van so the team could ride together. Volunteering is a hobby for the team.
Helping with Good Cheer teaches them the importance of community service and shows them how blessed they are, Holtzleiter said.
“Not everyone has the same chances they do,” he said.
