Nonpro t
BY KAREN CHANEY
There are hundreds of volunteers who help ful ll the mission of the nonpro t organization in Plano.
W. 15TH ST.
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3900 W. 15th St., Plano www.lovepacs.org/our-communities/plano
Michelle Leavitt, at left, and Ritu Gupta are the co-leaders of Lovepacs Plano community.
KAREN CHANEY COMMUNITY IMPACT
Lovepacs relies on volunteers to serve Plano students
both are strong believers in the mission of the nonpro t. In a nutshell Lovepacs provides mostly non-perishable, easy to open and minimal cooking food items to children on the free or reduced lunch program through public schools. The organization primarily supplies the boxed items during extended school breaks. Volunteers range from 3 to 89 years old. There are a variety of tasks that need to be done, such as decorating and packing boxes, stocking shelves, delivering boxes to schools and donating food items. Financial donations are needed as well.
The context When re ecting on what it takes to get 1,500 Lovepac boxes delivered for every Plano ISD school break, the co-leaders listed the numerous contributions from local entities, including the fact that they pay $1 a month to Medical City Plano to rent three o ce spaces. “Watching the boxes go out the door into peo- ple’s cars—there is something very satisfying about that,” Leavitt said. “I look at that box and I know it took months of preparation for this box to go to the school. That is a rewarding thing to see.”
Lovepacs was founded in 2011 by a group of parents in The Colony whose children voiced concerns about classmates who might experience food insecurity during school breaks. Although Ritu Gupta and Michelle Leavitt started volunteering with Lovepacs for di erent reasons and in di erent communities, they
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PLANO SOUTH EDITION
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