By Jocelyn Rowley
Loveland Reporter-Herald
LOVELAND, Colo. — Many hands make for light work, especially when those hands belong to the firefighting professionals of the Loveland Fire Rescue Authority.
On Sunday, a dozen of them gathered at KidsPak’s new facility in north Loveland for a 30-minute bagging session that, by some accounts, was the fastest in the organization’s history.
“I don’t think we’ve ever done 800 bags in 30 minutes,” said Corinne Carrigan, aboard member of the 15-year-old nonprofit.
Betsy Elliott, a longtime KidsPak volunteer and supervisor of Sunday’s packing, wasn’t sure that the performance was record-setting but agreed that it was speedy.
“It was pretty darn fast,” she said. “They’re one of the fastest groups we’ve had.”
For LFRA Chief Tim Sendlebach, his team’s 800 bags weren’t much of a surprise. Sunday’s event was originally scheduled to be a competition with the Loveland Police Department , so the firefighters were in a competitive mood.
“We were a little rusty in the beginning, but coming down the stretch, we did good,” the chief said. “We don’t play for second place.”
KidsPak was created in 2009 by members of the Loveland Rotary to provide weekend food bags to food-insecure students in the Thompson School District. Last year, the organization distributed 23,741 of those bags, containing an estimated 142,000 meals.
On Sunday, the firefighters and their families filled 800 more bright blue bags with 12 items that will provide multiple meals. Among them were full-size boxes of macaroni and cheese, cans of tuna, peanut butter, jelly, cereal, and beef sticks made at CSU’s food innovation center and donated to charitable food programs across the state.
“They’ve made two and a half million, and they get into basically 20 backpack programs in Colorado,” said KidsPak President Tom Carrigan. “It’s the only program in the United States where a university is helping feed kids.”
KidsPak is supported through a combination of donations and grants and purchases the food it distributes either from the Food Bank for Larimer County or at a discount from local distributors and vendors, Tom Carrigan explained. Volunteers help with packing the bags and delivering them.
Sendlebach and his team were only too happy to contribute to that effort on Sunday, the chief said.
“We enjoy it and it’s a good time,” he said. For just 30 minutes on a Sunday? I think it’s the least we can do.”
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