These are challenging times for all of us, and like other Rotarians, our Fayette Daybreak Club has been looking for ways to serve our community while staying safe during the pandemic.

In September, we held a food drive and all of our members took part. Some of us collected canned goods, others made online donations or donated gift cards. Some made donations through food drives at their churches, collected items from neighbors and friends, or checked with local schools about families in need. One of our newest members contacted her friends at Delta Cargo who donated $500 plus several large boxes of non-perishable food items.

One of the recipient organizations for the food drive was The Real Life Center (reallifecenter.org), a well-established nonprofit providing social services to residents of Fayette and Coweta counties. We invited their Marketing Coordinator, Lina Martin, to speak at one of our online meetings in October. She invited us to come tour their facility and volunteer while we were there. We gladly accepted and put it on our November calendar.

The morning of the tour we all wore masks, and the large open spaces in the warehouse made it a relatively safe environment. It felt great to be together in person and we loved doing a service project. Lina set us up putting together items for Thanksgiving meals and we filled over 120 bags in half an hour — we had a blast! And we had invited a prospective new member to come along and he seemed to have a great time too.

We had also donated a gift basket for the center’s online auction fundraiser, and were happy to hear it went for $550. The basket included items from our members, plus donations we had collected from local businesses and individuals. We believe The Real Life Center shares our dedication to “Service Above Self” and we value the partnership developing between our two organizations.

We look forward to continuing to grow the relationship as we support our community together. In fact, we’ve already talked to Lina about our next service project for them: a blanket drive during the upcoming winter months.