LOVELOCK - Lovelock Correctional Center has a history of supporting causes throughout Pershing County, Nevada and the world. It has been nominated for the Real Heroes award through the American Red Cross and through bake sales and employee donations has been able to send 10 packages with T-shirts, school supplies, first aid supplies and toys to Zambia for former Relay for Life Community Relationship Manager Gracie Geremia, who is now a Peace Corps volunteer beginning to teach school in the African country.
Most recently, LCC employees donated 35 backpacks filled with school supplies to three Pershing County entities. Eleven stuffed backpacks were given to the Imlay Elementary School; the rest were given to the New Life Fellowship Church in Lovelock for their backpack give-away and still more school supplies were donated to the Lovelock Elementary School.
"This has been one of the most fun fundraisers that we have done. Everything is so colorful. Some of the staff really got into it," LCC fundraiser coordinator Valaree Olivas said. "I had staff calling up to make sure it is not too late to donate or asking what we still needed. And I got to watch the pile of stuff grow."
"Every department participated - maintenance, education, administration, medical, custody, caseworkers, everybody got in on it," Olivas said.
Employees gathered supplies and backpacks throughout the summer and made their donations last week before school started.
Olivas explained how the school supply drive got started.
"We were doing the T-shirt, school supplies for Gracie Geremia, the Peace Corps volunteer, former Relay For Life Community Relationship Manager for Lovelock, and one of the officers suggested that we also do something, school related, that stayed in the USA. So I stopped by the elementary school and asked them if they participated in the Adopt-A-Classroom program. Principal Murphy gave me a short wish list of things and it all started from there."
"We actually started out just doing school supplies. One of the employees, administrative assistant Leane Rutherford, contacted me and said that her church was trying to do a backpack program for Lovelock kids. I told her that if the warden gave us permission that we would expand the program to try to help out. Then Paula Salgado, LCC canteen, suggested that we do something specifically for the Imlay School kids so that's how we ended up doing the backpacks for them. Because of all of the donations, we were able to give backpacks with supplies to all of the preregistered Imlay kids, the church program and still had supplies that we could take to the Lovelock Elementary School."
Olivas praised the community spirit of her fellow workers and LCC warden.
"All of this is staff driven and approved by warden LeGrand. We would not be able to do any of these programs; blood drives, T-shirts to Zambia, Santa for Seniors, food drives, toy drives, military package drives, etc., if we didn't get such great participation from our staff," Olivas said.
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