The Jacksonville Kiwanis Club has recently made contributions to help those in the community. Treasure Bob Ford gave a report on the recent donations given to Jacksonville High School's FFA President Elizabeth Wilson to help her attend a national competition and to help Zachary Whiting and Dillon Connell perform with the National High School Honor Orchestra in California. The club then supported the motion to make a contribution to Breast Cancer Research in memory of Lea Fite, who was a member of the Kiwanis Club. The club also made a donation to a project that will help Jacksonville's local heroes.

At the meeting, Senior Coordinator Wendy Thompson and Jacksonville Senior Mary Foster Jones spoke to the club about the project that Jacksonville seniors from the Senior Center came up with. The project will send 64 care packages to Jacksonville soldiers overseas.

The project started when the seniors adopted a soldier, Andrew Vanhorne.

"One of my seniors reminded me of Wendell Thompson and the 2025th and asked me if we could pray for them as well," said Thompson. "And then we decided to send them a bunch of letters and notes and scriptures, just a whole package of paper."

The response the soldiers from those notes was what drove this new project.

"Well, we got back this letter that just really touched all of our hearts," said Thompson. "It was from Wendell and it said that other than their family and friends, no one else from Jacksonville has sent them anything. So we just took it upon ourselves to send care packages to them."

The seniors went out to the community and asked for things to put in the packages. Children from Kitty Stone Elementary made letters, local doctors and churches provided goodies, Mary Foster-Jones cut out cartoons and puzzles from the newspaper and hand signed letters for every package, and individual citizens contributed as well.

Mayor Johnny Smith wrote a letter as well. In the letter the mayor writes, "As I begin to write down thoughts of what I would like to say to each of you, I could not help but to be drawn to the most important fact of all- How grateful I am that you are so willing to give of yourselves for those of us here at home in the United States of America. The dedication that it takes to be so far from home- leaving behind loved ones, friends, and the simple comforts of our life, things we take for granted, to protect our rights to have them, is greatly appreciated."

Thompson was worried about the cost of shipping, but the costs were taken care for by the donation from the Kiwanis Club.