CASCO and Community Rally for Local Nonprofits
Butler County Animal Shelter and CASCO employees with the donations for the shelter. PHOTO | Beverly Bonilla
Story and pictures by Beverly Bonilla
The We Care Community Appreciation Day was held on Friday, April 25, at 1357 Veterans Way in Morgantown and was organized by CASCO.
The We Care Program began last year, initially assisting only one nonprofit, The Kitchen. This year, the program was able to help many more. While donations were open to the entire Butler County community, the majority of items were generously contributed by CASCO employees.
The nonprofits supported this year included the Morgantown Mission, Butler County Animal Shelter, Morgantown Care and Rehab, and The Kitchen.
Morgantown Care & Rehab with the items donated to their facility and residents. PHOTO | Beverly Bonilla
April Graham, the Operational Excellence Manager for CASCO stated that they asked all the team members to decide who was special in their hearts that this program would benefit more from. As soon as that was decided, then the planning began. There was a lot of time and dedication from everyone involved internally and externally. Many donations were collected, silent auctions with baskets of assorted items. Jessica, an employee at CASCO, was responsible for getting the baskets and raffles together. She stated that they were expecting to collect around $1000 for everything but was grateful that the community came together and far exceeded their expectations by thousands.
Morgantown Mission received over 550 items, The Kitchen also received over 550 items, the Butler County Animal Shelter received more than 880 items, and Morgantown Care and Rehab received over 1,540 items. These generous donations would not have been possible without the support of CASCO and the Butler County community.
Boys and Girls Club. PHOTO | Beverly Bonilla
In the next few years, they hope to expand and make it a lot larger community activity. The main focus is to see what the community wants and what the community needs. There was a ballot box to help decide where the donations would go.
CASCO had many activities during the week for their employees, they offered training, fire drills, different safety topics every day, healthy eating, and a blood drive. Butler County Fire Rescue presented a safety seminar. They had a poster contest and color page contest for kids and all the pictures were taped up on the windows for all to see.
Even with it raining on the day of the main event, there were still many organizations that came and set up to hand out information about their business. They had Butler County Animal Shelter, Workforce Solutions, Boys and Girls Club, Barren River Health, CASCO, Car Seat Safety, Butler County Rescue, Butler County Library, and American Red Cross.
Barren River District Health Department. PHOTO | Beverly Bonilla
CASCO reached out to other industries and CORVAC decided to go above and beyond what they were asked. They hung umbrellas upside down in the break rooms at CORVAC and people would toss their extra change in there and that money collected was distributed to the non-profits locally. They also bought sack lunches and the money from those were also given. The employees brought in donated items to go along with the items that CASCO had collected.
CASCO’s, We Care Program Supporters
Casco Products Corporation CORVAC Composites
Vicki and Steve Pierson Sonic
Mary Richmond Carrie Ann’s Creations
Cherly Nelson for Butler Co Animal Shelter Drakes Farm Services
Green River Waste WRECC
Canteen Rafferty’s
Hebrews 12 Ace Hardware
SKYCTC Chick-Fil-a
Firehouse Pizza Beech Bend
Cedar Ridge Speedway Five Seasons
Butler Co Chamber of Commerce P31
Pye Barker April Graham
Deralyn Baggett Garrisons Department Store
Texas Roadhouse Gavins Meat Processing
Cintas Barren River District Health Department
BSI Southern Lanes
Taylor Taylwynd Trucking Ashby’s Flooring
