Lion’s Heart is a national organization that curates teen volunteer opportunities. The Park City chapter has about 100 participants in grades 6 through 12 who volunteer to do good deeds. Each grade has both a girls and boys group.
The chapter has set a goal to provide 200 bags of food for elementary school-aged children to take home over the holiday break. Amy Macuga is one of the adult class coordinators for Lion’s Heart. She says they still have a ways to go to get to their goal.
“I think we're about at 100 so I'm hoping we can reach that,” Macuga said. “We are delivering the bags to the elementary school next Thursday. But people keep signing up. It was amazing the response from our community as always just comes out. To support these kinds of projects and programs.”
Macuga says there are two ways to participate... people can donate money in increments of $25 and Lion Heart volunteers will do the shopping and pack the bags – or donors can do the shopping and bag packing themselves. The shopping list she says is very specific to make sure that all children receive the same things to avoid any kid becoming a target because he or she may have received something extra.
The bags of food will be delivered to a Salt Lake City elementary school next week. The school, Macuga says, has a number of students on the free lunch program. These bags of food will help sustain them while they’re at home for the holiday break...
“The need sounds so extreme there,” Macuga said. “I called yesterday to let them know we're bringing bags and they're asking if we could bring more. So, you know these kids, what it is, is they they're going to go home over the holidays and there won't be school, and they won't get a hot lunch every day. So, the hope is that they go home they'll have this food for over the holiday during their school break. I think during the holidays people are looking to give back and, you know, used to, you might adopt a family but which was great that this, I mean, these kids don't even have food or the holidays and it's food that they can prepare because they might not have a parent at home.”
People can support their efforts by signing up online by end of day on Tuesday, December 7th. Here is the link.