CROTHERSVILLE — As Crothersville-Vernon Township Volunteer Fire Department firetrucks pulled into the parking lot of Village Apartments on Saturday morning, a resident was standing on the sidewalk.
She wanted to know who was responsible for the toys and food being delivered to people who live in the apartment complex.
She was directed to Linda Myers, adviser of Crothersville FFA, which organized the Toy and Food Drive distribution for the 34th year.
The woman, with tears in her eyes, gave Myers a hug and thanked her. At that point, Myers had tears in her eyes, too.
They were good tears, though. Myers said she typically doesn’t go out on deliveries, but she’s glad she chose to do so this year.
“For somebody to come up to us and hug us, we know that there’s a need out there,” she said. “Just that tender thank you and so appreciative, you don’t have to get an award, you don’t have to break a tonnage record, you don’t have to be recognized for anything. That was pretty awesome.”
The 115 families receiving toys and food this year is a record and is up from 96 last year. The initiative impacted 129 kids and 202 adults.
One difference this year is 11 families in Grassy Fork Township benefited from the Toy and Food Drive. From the start, the program has just been for Vernon Township residents.
The two Crothersville FFA officers who live in Tampico asked Myers about branching into Grassy Fork Township this year. Myers said they had thought about doing that a couple of years ago, but it was shut down because it was out of the township and school district.
This year, though, the idea was brought before the FFA advisory board and officers, and they approved. The chapter then connected with a church in Grassy Fork Township to get names of families to help and also reached out to the Grassy Fork Township Volunteer Fire Department to help, and they were willing to do so.
“I mean wow! You think about how you’re going to expand or how you’re going to do bigger or how you’re going to impact more lives, boom! One student did that,” Myers said. “I think that speaks monuments for these leaders. That makes me really proud of them.”
Kendall Berry, a senior at Crothersville High School and secretary of the FFA chapter, is one of the officers who lives in Tampico. She said most of the beneficiaries live near her.
“I just know there are so many people out around me that are in need, and it was just a really good thing that we got to include them,” she said. “It’s just expanding this a little further.”
The Crothersville-Vernon Township firefighters have helped with the Toy and Food Drive since its inception, and the FFA chapter was glad to also have representatives from Grassy Fork and Hamilton townships help this year.
Another new thing this year was Crothersville-Vernon Township hosted a pancake fundraiser and used the money to buy toys to boost that part of the annual campaign. That resulted in 82 toys and books being purchased.
“We typically are shy on the toys because if anything, I use the money to buy more food than I do toys because it’s hard to be specific to a family. It’s hard for me to know what your kid wants, but I know they would take a gallon of milk,” Myers said. “We focus more on the food than we do the toys, but there are people in the community that focus on the toys and they make sure we have toys, and I just appreciate it.”
The annual craft show in November also brought in more money this year. Myers said she increased the number of pork burgers by 200, and that put the chapter in a very good spot as far as money to spend for the Toy and Food Drive.
That plus donations from Premier Companies/Land O’Lakes and Salem Walmart made big impacts, Myers said.
“From those three entities, those are the three legs that hold that stool up. Those are it,” she said.
The FFA chapter also received a donation of 73 bicycles from Guardian Bikes of Seymour and monetary donations from Pepsi in Austin, Aisin Drivetrain Inc. and Aisin Chemical Indiana LLC in Crothersville and Millman Realty Partners in Seymour. Plus, Crothersville Elementary School did a food drive again this year, and Crothersville Junior-Senior High School did a wall decorating contest.
“People know that we mean what we do. We mean it, and we’re doing it,” Myers said. “This is the biggest thing that we do. Everything we do revolves around this. It’s really a 365-day effort. We’ve already got ideas that we’re going to do next year. The ideas that we get are how to make things more efficient. The ideas that we get are how to serve more people. The ideas we get are how to get more people involved. That’s what we’re doing.”
For the second year in a row, Myers did not announce the tonnage of food and toys being delivered. When a record of 20 tons was set in 2020, she said it was literally backbreaking, and the officers agreed to turn the focus from quantity to quality on the food and toys being handed out.
“I think we’ll probably stick with that from here on out because it conserves the number of boxes that we have to deliver, it conserves the transportation, it conserves just wear and tear on a person,” Myers said. “There are just a lot of different benefits just doing quality over quantity.”
Myers also gives a lot of credit to the FFA members, from sixth grade to 12th grade and even alumni, who help with the Toy and Food Drive each year. She said it’s neat to see the perspective of a first-year member taking in the enormity of the project, and she noted five of her six officers from last year who graduated came back to help.
“It’s embedded in them. This is their thing, and it’s priceless,” she said. “It’s valuable to them because they are vested. They want it to be better than last year. They know all of these hardships people are going through, so they are 100% vested. Alumni come back year after year to make sure it holds the integrity.”
Myers said she hopes FFA teaches members about community service.
“It’s not the community service where you go for a couple hours and you give a couple hours of your time,” she said. “These kids have worked their tails off, and they hurt when they go home. They are physically hurt because they’ve lifted or they’ve bent or they’ve stepped or they’ve pushed, whatever it is, to give back.”
Berry said she transferred to CHS her sophomore year and joined FFA, and being involved in that organization has benefited her in several ways.
“When I moved here, I could not speak in front of people, and (Myers) put me up in front of my class and she said, ‘You’re doing this and you’re doing it now,’” Berry said. “Right then and there, I learned how to public speak. I’ve learned so many leadership skills just from being around people and talking to everyone. You meet people from all over. It’s amazing just how many people you do get to meet. I would highly recommend it to anyone.”
She likes being part of the Toy and Food Drive.
“Toy and Food Drive is just amazing,” Berry said. “At the end of the day, you just feel like you’ve done something, and you have. You give back to the community, and it’s just amazing.”
She said it’s great to see alumni come back to help each year, and she plans to do that, too.
“Oh, for sure. I feel like if I didn’t come back, I’d be disowned, so I kind of have to,” she said, smiling.
Myers said she doesn’t have to tell the alumni and firefighters how to do anything. They just do it because they have that experience and want to help.
“Who would have thought 34 years ago that this would have evolved to this?” she said. “It was not the intention, but how blessed we are that it is. Thirty-four years, it’s a long time.”