Inverness Lodge provided 85 backpacks loaded with school supplies to foster children served by the Citrus County Foster Parent Association and 75 backpacks to 14 area schools. The program is funded by the Elks National Foundation Gratitude Grant.
Pictured are Elk Jan Belland, project co-chairman; Elba Jiminez, Citrus County Foster Parent Association board member; volunteer Skye Worrell; Lynn Kanawall, CCFPA advisor; Richard Grosnick, ENF lodge chairman; and Elk Judy Horton, lodge trustee, at the donation presentation of 85 school-supply filled backpacks for the foster children.
Dunnellon Middle School principal, Delbert Smallridge, left, accepts a donation of backpacks from Inverness Lodge presented by Exalted Ruler, Bill Mc Avay and his wife, Fern. Smallridge was very grateful; the need in Marion County is almost desperate as 30% of the children there live well below the poverty line.
Jan Belland and Richard Grosnick, second and third from left, present backpacks to Inverness Middle School’s social workers staff Christi Wilson and Diane Buie. Eighth-grader Cassidy Bacon is pictured at left.