No resident will go hungry at Christmastime in Kewanee if the Good Fellow’s Christmas Basket Club has anything to say about it. And it does. Since 1969, Amron Buchanan has helped steer the annual food project, which distributes hundreds of boxes filled with food to residents and families in need each December.
On Monday, operation “filling the boxes” began in earnest at the Central gym. Students from fourth grade to high school assembled and, under the watchful eye of Key Club Advisor Amy Miler, began adding the nonperishable items to the various sized boxes.
That day, the students added items that don’t require refrigeration and were delivered right to the gym door on trucks from Save-a-lot. Tuna, jelly, peanut butter, spaghetti sauce, spaghetti and paper towels were added to the boxes.
The process will continue on Tuesday with the addition of fruit, potatoes, donated canned goods and boxed dinners. The donated food comes from canned food drives that started back in November at Visitation and Kewanee and Wethersfield schools.
“Tomorrow we’ll go with a big truck to all of the schools to pick up the canned goods,” said Buchanan, who after decades has the process down to a science.
Wednesday is delivery day, and that’s when the perishable items such as whole hams, eggs, margarine, milk, bread and rolls are added to the boxes. The day begins early at 7 am, with the hope of getting the boxes finished for delivery at 9 am.
Delivery drivers are volunteers from the Kewanee Kiwanis Club. The drivers, each accompanied by two students, will deliver the baskets right to the door of the people who applied for them, said Buchanan. The delivery process will go until all of the boxes are gone.
In all, 890 boxes will go to Kewanee residents. Small boxes will provide food for single residents, while large boxes will feed families with as many as 11 members. The total number of people who will be fed this year is 2,417 at a cost of over $33,000.
The Good Fellow’s Christmas Basket Club is a nonprofit organization that relies on donations, said Buchanan, who is president of the club’s board. They accept donations throughout the year and have two major fundraisers. Tag Days is helped along by students from both school districts and the organizations of the K Kids, the Builder’s Club and the Key Club. A letter mailing fundraiser and private donors helps cover the cost as well.
Buchanan was the KHS Key Club advisor when he met the man who started it all. James Whisker was a night shift foreman in the steel, iron and gray iron foundry and was appointed chairman of the basket fund in 1957. The Good Fellow’s Basket Fund was a welfare program sponsored by the Kewanee War Veterans Council. Buchanan met Whisker in 1969, and two men formed a partnership to involve the Key Club in helping to deliver some of the baskets.
In 1973, the Good Fellow’s Christmas Basket Club was issued a charter as a not-for-profit corporation by the State of Illinois. Buchanan has kept careful records of the club’s history, including the number of baskets delivered in each of the years. In 1974, 109 baskets were delivered. That number has grown and the highest number of baskets, 1065, were delivered and fed over 3,100 people in 2011.
Buchanan relies on dozens of student and adult volunteers who help ensure the club’s mission is carried out.
“The community is very generous in supporting our objective to have no one hungry in Kewanee at Christmastime,” he said.
The baskets will be delivered on Wednesday, Dec. 20. Donations can be made to The Good Fellow’s Christmas Basket Club, PO Box 5, Kewanee, IL., 61443.
