PTK Helpers – Helping to unload food on Monday after a two-week food drive conducted by the national honor fraternity Phi Theta Kappa at Barton County Community College are left to right: Steffanie Kirkland, Great Bend; Alicia Wyatt, Albert; Kevin Ille, Ellinwood; and Tim Ruble, Great Bend.

November 22, 2005 Barton Honor Students Collect for Food Bank By: Susan Thacker Great Bend Tribune It wasn’t rocket science, but a plan to collect hundreds of items for the local food bank did pose a logic problem for honor students at Barton County Community College this month. Happily, members of the Phi Psi chapter of the national honor fraternity Phi Theta Kappa were up to the task. Barton’s PTK members conducted a food drive from Nov. 7 through 18 and on Monday they delivered about 30 boxes of food to Community Food Bank of Barton County, 3007 10th Street.

That’s a total of 1,458 food items said Barton Student Alicia Wyatt, 19 of Albert.

“All of the students (in PTK) really value helping other people”, Wyatt said. The honors organization recently donated $500 to the Great Bend Humane Society, and does other service projects as well. Students must maintain at least a 3.5 grade point 19, of Albert.

PTK member Kevin Ille, 20,of Ellinwood, said the students put at least one collection box in each building on campus, and enlisted teachers to urge students and staff to drop off non-perishable food. Some teachers offered extra credit for food donations, he said. PTK also offered a prize to staff in the building that came up with the most donations. Sometime after thanksgiving, students will be delivering doughnuts to the Kirkman Building Ille said. Dale and Lenore carpenter, co-presidents of the food bank’s board of directors, said gifts have come from all over for the past month – and from philanthropists of all ages. The morning and afternoon groups at Helping Hands Preschool also made food donation on Monday.

PTK Food Drive – Alicia Wyatt, Albert, and Staffanie Kirkland, Great Bend, members of the Phi Psi chapter of the national honor fraternity Phi Theta Kappa at Barton County Community College, carry a box full of food into the Barton County Food Bank, Great Bend, on Monday. Barton’s PTK honors organization conducted a food drive from Nov. 7 through 18. The group collected about 30 boxes of food, accounting for 1,458 food items that were donated to the food bank.

”They sang a little turkey song to us” Lenore Carpenter said, and the preschoolers’ enthusiasm was contagious. “ Kids just light up when they think they’re helping somebody.”

When she returned from the afternoon trip to the preschool, Carpenter saw the PTK donation.

”I walked in there and could hardly get through the food. It was everywhere” she said, “We really did appreciate it. It was overwhelming.”

The food bank is sponsored by the local association of churches, but has also received donations recently form Great Bend elementary schools and from Drug free Youth in town (D-FY IT) during Red Ribbon Week, plus a separate drive by Eisenhower Elementary School; 27 cases of food from Farmer Bank; $500 from the Great Bend Fire Department after its spaghetti dinner; and a monetary gift from the Albert Gumbir estate awarded through the Golden Belt Community Foundation in October. The Boy Scouts’ citywide food drive was also held in October.

“These and other organizations have come through for us” Carpenter said

The donations have come at a good time, she said. Seventeen Families came to the food bank for assistance last Friday, and 14 more came in on Monday.

“We’ll be busy from now until the first of the year,” Carpenter said.

Community Food Bank of Barton County-The Food bank is located at 3007 10th Street, behind the Kansas Lottery Regional Office, Hours are 1 to 3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday. The telephone number is 792-4001.