Gifts, volunteers keep Humanity House dreaming big

At Humanity House we are celebrating our third year in existence. It was in December of 2015 that we moved into our first office space, a space that was donated for our use by John McRae.

By the time we opened up shop, we had already held a Poverty Summit that was attended by people from 88 of the 112 organizations that help people in Allen County. We’d closed out our first gardening season, had our first utility relief fundraiser, and built and installed the Blessing Boxes in Iola, Humboldt, and Elsmore. We’d built and installed Little Lending Libraries in Iola and Moran and held our first clothing swap. Laundry Love began. We created a small food pantry and agreed to cook Sunday Soups.

That year, we gave out our first 50 Christmas boxes of food in conjunction with Santa’s Toy Shop. With some amazing volunteers, duffle bags for kids going into foster care were created. A Dignity Drive was successful in providing sanitary products for girls in Humboldt, Moran and Iola. Ideas on ways we could facilitate interaction between people swirled around our office.