The event was made possible through a collaboration of several organizations, including United Healthcare, Liberal Area Coalition for Families, Southwest Medical Center, Genesis Family Health, United Way and others.

Players from the Lady Saints volleyball team along with SCCC employees volunteered their time to help hand out the items.

“Food is the most important thing that we have to offer people and any time we can help the community out and use our student-athletes and employees to help, we will,” said SCCC President Brad Bennett. “That’s what it’s about, giving back.”

SCCC Head Volleyball Coach Geno Frugoli said it was an excellent opportunity to get his players involved.

“It’s important to not only show to our players that service in the community is really important, but also to get out and help the community and people in need,” Frugoli said. “It’s been a good experience for the team and great that we can help out the community. We’re always willing to help. We want to show the community that we care. When you’re a tight community and in need, this is kind of thing that you do.”

With over 1,000 boxes of food and COVID safety kits, families in need were able to drive through and pick up them up. There was no requirements or qualifications to receive the items.

“Our community is hurting and people need help,” said Kay Burtzloff, board president of LACF and a member of the SCCC board of trustees. “We’ve been able to pull together a real coalition of different entities to be able to provide this service. It’s not just United Healthcare or Liberal Area Coalition for Families or United Way or Genesis Health Systems. We also have SCCC volunteers because this takes a lot of manpower. Literally, we have thousands of these boxes and kits to give away.

“You don’t have to qualify for anything,” she added. “If you need help, we want to help you. We don’t want to put any barriers in the way.”

The organizations will be holding two more drive throughs in the upcoming months.