Greene County Adopt-A-Family received a generous donation from a non-profit group to help make less-fortunate families holiday season brighter.

Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation gave the local Adopt-A-Family $10,000 through its Surprise Give Back Award program. Sherry Graven with Adopt-A-Family said the funds will be used for the holiday food baskets. GGCGC board member Peg Raney told Raccoon Valley Radio why they give additional funds to non-profit organizations this time of year.

“We’ve done this traditionally the last few years. We call it just a Give Back Award of some money to a program that we really feel like could use that boost (financially) here now at the end of the year. So we just talk about it, it’s not an application. Our board members are very aware of what’s going on in the whole county.”

Graven expresses her gratitude on behalf of Adopt-A-Family for the large monetary donation.

“I’m just so thrilled. That’s a lot of money and I don’t take that lightly. There’s a lot of begging that I do to get the donations to pay for the holiday food baskets, and this huge donation is really going to make a big difference. However, the projects that we do throughout the year average around $20,000 a year. So we’re still going to need local donations from individuals and businesses. This is not going to cover the whole expense for the food baskets this year.”

Donations are accepted year round and can be made to Adopt-A-Family at P.O. Box 364, Jefferson, Iowa 50129. You can also make a donation to any Peoples Bank location in the county or to Graven in the County Engineer’s Office on the ground floor of the Greene County Courthouse.