The Clyde Food Drive and Magic Change Jar

Mar 312011

March 31, 2011 Posted by Mark Clawson Add comments

The Clyde Theater will sponsor the Good Cheer Food Drive for the month of April.

Blake and Lynn Willeford, owners of the Clyde, had their first food drive for Good Cheer in 2009 donating 600 pounds of food. Last year it was 1,000 pounds and they are hoping to top that number this year. The Magic Change Jar at the Clyde is also benefiting Good Cheer. The donations and matches started in March and will run through the end of April.

Lynn and Blake both volunteer at the Good Cheer Food Bank and two of their employees do the same; Mindy Thompson works at the Food Bank and Eve Carty helps out at the Good Cheer Garden.

The Magic Change Jar has a great history. Lynn and Blake were fortunate to have matching partners Lindsay Communications and the Island Athletic Club on board. In 2009 the patrons and MCJ partners ended up donating about $ 5,000 to six local charities, including $1,000 to Good Cheer. This was followed in 2010 when they took it up a notch by raising an additional $8,667 for Haiti earthquake relief.

When I spoke to Lynn about their community involvement she also spoke to their work in Haiti and Africa. I mentioned my post on Kid Helping Kids, a program helping kids in Africa that my daughter was involved in.

Lynn explained that Blake and Kelly Henriot, president of the Langley Middle School’s PTA had organized a shoe drive. Both are avid runners who had plenty of pairs of shoes lying around. A two-week drive collected more than a thousand pairs of shoes and sandals that were shipped to Senegal. Shoes and sandals are vital in Africa to reduce incidents of trauma, hookworm and parasites that enter the bare foot. Foot injuries can keep adults from going to work, and children from going to school.

“Kids there don’t hop on the school bus,” Willeford said. “They often walk miles to school. If they get an infection, they can’t go.”