Cup of Grace has been blessed since its founding in January 2017. Blessed with finding a facility to hold a free, weekly community meal; blessed by amazing, hardworking volunteers; and, blessed with a community of neighbors and businesses who support and encourage us. And we have been blessed yet again – twice!
In September 2018, we used a $2500 grant from Kootenai Electric Trust to purchase a storage trailer for our community meal supplies. The mayor of Spirit Lake is graciously allowing us to store the trailer in the Spirit Lake Senior and Community Center parking lot. The Center is the facility in which we host the weekly meal.
Until we had this trailer, our Executive Director, Amy Privitt, had to store the supplies for the community meal (paper/plastic products, serving dishes/utensils, administrative binders/papers) in “Bessie,” her old, but loveable, van. The extra supplies she kept in her garage. This rendered Bessie useless for anything other than meal supply transport unless we unloaded everything. If Amy forgot something for the meal, or we needed more supplies (napkins, forks, etc.), she or another volunteer had to drive back to her house and pick it up.
With the new trailer, our volunteers use a handcart to transfer tubs filled with supplies from the trailer to the Center, about 50 feet away. If they forget something or need more supplies, they just have to run over to the trailer and get it. So convenient!
In January of 2019, we used a second grant of $2000 from the Idaho Community Foundation (ICF) to purchase another, smaller storage trailer. This trailer will have a dual purpose.
In the winter, it will store and transport warm clothing for the local schools’ clothes closets. Coats, snow pants, leggings, sweatpants and sweatshirts, boots, waterproof gloves and hats are all provided to our local schools for kids who don’t have them or who get their clothes wet during recess and need to change into warm, dry clothes once they get back to class. Currently, our volunteers drive to the schools to take inventory of the clothes closet, and then have to drive back to Amy’s house to get the needed clothing. Now, the volunteers can just haul the storage trailer to the school and get whatever is needed out of it to stock the closet immediately.
In the summer, Cup of Grace provides free lunches to kids on Saturdays in the Big Park, along with “weekend bags” to those who need them. The small trailer will be able to store the non-perishable goods needed for this program, and the volunteers can transport the lunches and weekend bags in the trailer to the park for distribution. This will be wonderful for our volunteers!
Both of these trailers will prove to be real blessings for Cup of Grace. Since we do not have a permanent home at this time, we need to be mobile and able to store and transport the supplies necessary for our community programs. These trailers allow us to do just that. Thank you, Kootenai Electric Trust and Idaho Community Foundation! Bless you and thank you for believing in our ministry.
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