Local nonprofits, including schools, were beneficiaries of $21,400 during 2016, from the sale of such things as shirts and small household appliances at bargain-basement prices at the Iola Senior Center.
Joe Hess, a director of Iola Senior Citizens, Inc., gave his annual accounting of donations made: $5,150 to the local schools; $2,500 to Elm Creek Community Gardens; $2,000 to hospice; $1,750 to Faith House, Chanute; $1,500 each to Hope Unlimited, and Iola Public Library: $1,000 each to CASA, Drug Court, Pregnancy Resource Center, ACMAT, and CURB; and $500 each to the Community Food Pantry and Project Care.
Clothing by the truckload is sorted and put out for sale by volunteers at the center, 223 N. State St.
“We get a lot of quality clothes that we sell for cheap prices,” 20 cents for shirts, 25 cents for jeans, and 50 cents for suits and coats, Hess said. A pharmaceutical representative from Lawrence stops by occasionally, to buy “a number of suits for a theatrical group to use.”
For those so inclined, Hess said volunteers can prepare itemized lists of donations so their worth may used as an income tax deduction.
About 50 people carried hot meals, prepared in the county law enforcement center kitchen, to Meals on Wheels recipients during 2016.
They will be invited to the county employees recognition luncheon on Feb. 21, on the proposal of Commissioner Jerry Daniels. More than 1,000 meals were delivered in Iola, Humboldt, Gas, LaHarpe, and Moran.
Commissioners met in three executive sessions, totaling 20 minutes, during which they discussed “trade secrets of a corporation” with David Toland, CEO of Thrive Allen County and the area’s part-time economic development director.
IN OTHER NEWS, commissioners:
— Gave their approval for decorations for the Relay for Life cancer fundraising event to be put up on Friday, June 2. The relay will start at 6 a.m. on Saturday and continue until 2 a.m. Sunday.
— Appointed Iolan Larry Walden and LaDonna Krone, Humboldt, to the Southeast Kansas Area Agency on Aging Board.
— Noted Carla Nemecek, an Extension Service agent stationed in Allen County, received the 2016 Kansas PRIDE Partner Award at the K-State Research and Extension annual conference.
