Cheer Basket needs a sponsor

The Cheer Basket Project will be changing hands this year. The Mountain Home Rotary Club met Tuesday and was expected to endorse participation in the project, along with support from members of the Lions Club.

The Jaycees had been running the project, which provides food baskets to needy families at Christmas, but that club has virtually ceased to exist, said Tammy Schoen, a former president of the Jaycees.

She said declining membership in the Jaycees would probably result in the club losing its charter sometime around the first of the year.

That meant the club has been trying to find someone to take on the annual charity project that had won the local Jaycees top state and national awards for community service in the past.

"It's due to a lack of numbers," Schoen explained, noting the club doesn't even have an official president at present. "The old members are burned out and fewer people today want to do free community service." She noted that the national and state Jaycee organizations also appeared to be in trouble. "It's unfortunate. I'm sad and frustrated. This organization has done a lot for me. But probably, by January, we will not have a chapter here."

And that has left the group scrambling to find someone to pick up the Cheer Basket Project, which annually provides food baskets at Christmas to over 200 local families.

Geoff Schroeder, the local National Guard recruiter who is teaching a military science class for the high school this year, offered to help take over the project, hoping the Lions Club would take it on.

But Lions Club president Bob Roberts said when he brought the idea up at a recent meeting, "I didn't get any warm fuzzies." Roberts said their seemed to be a general consensus that the Lions should continue to focus on their existing projects (most related to eyesight preservation), but noted that many Lions have volunteered in the past to help with the Cheer Basket Project and he expected a number of them would do so again this year.

So Schoeder has taken the matter to the Rotary Club, which was meeting as this paper went to press. Rotary President Terry Ratliff could not be reached Monday for comment, but Schoeder said he believed the Rotary had indicated it would be willing to assume leadership of the Cheer Basket Project.

"I think if they will take the lead role, we'll be able to find enough members of the Rotary, and the Lions and my military science class to make sure that the Cheer Basket Project continues.

"It will get done," he promised.

The Cheer Basket project was launched several decades ago by Vinnie Sorenson and some friends, who simply wanted to help a few families in town who needed food for the holidays.

When Sorensen retired from the project it was picked up by two individuals, Kelly Everitt and Paul Copenhaven, who ran it for several years until they could find a local service club to take on the Project. The Jaycees have directed the Cheer Basket efforts for nearly ten years.

They are making their detailed breakdown of what needs to be done available to whoever takes over the project, as well as the special bank account set up to handle the project's funds.