Thursday’s ‘Love Coffee’ will be for great causes
Published 7:00 am Tuesday, February 9, 2016
The Franklinton Woman’s Club is gearing up for their annual Love Coffee fundraiser Thursday at the Centenary United Methodist Church.
DAILY NEWS FILE PHOTO
Marilyn Richardson, left, and Judy Ferrante served as greeters during last year’s Franklinton Woman’s Club’s Love Coffee benefit at Centenary United Methodist Church. This year’s event is Thursday.
The coffee is donated by the women’s club, and anyone who attends is asked to bring a donation. The money the club raises will go to the Franklinton Help Center and to The Franklinton Association for Challenged Citizens.
Dianne Green, a member of the woman’s club, said the coffee has been an annual tradition for decades.
“We’ve been doing this, I can’t tell you exactly how many years, but at least 20,” Green said. “Maybe longer than that.”
She said the program is popular, and this year the woman’s club is adding a bit to the program by inviting sixth graders from Franklinton and Bowling Green to write essays on love.
The midmorning coffee fundraiser has grown increasingly important for the Franklinton Community as the Help Center has begun feeding needy families in the area. Green said the Help Center began providing a weekly box of groceries in late 2014, and as of January, they have given out 142,765 pounds of food. Green said each weighs about 35 pounds and costs $25 per box.
Green said the center feeds 1,100 people each week, so the donations raised at the coffee help quite a bit.
“Unfortunately we don’t have any other source of funding aside from contributions from around the community,” she said of the Help Center.
She added that 92.4 percent of donations to the Help Center go to buy food; the rest is used on rent, electricity and insurance.
The Franklinton Association for Challenged Citizens is a much older group. Green said that group was, “founded in March, 1968 by the parents of children with developmental disabilities.”
Green said the group with disabled adults, helping them live on their own and providing them with some work.
“They have a program, it’s a day thing, they come in and they have jobs for them,” Green said. “Some of them do yards and things like that. They teach job readiness and things like that.”
The coffee will be begin at 9:30 a.m. Thursday and wrap up by 11:30 a.m.
Everyone is welcome to stop by. The church is located at 1015 Cleveland St.