Hobart students raise cash for pantry
Hobart Junior ROTC cadets sell mattresses to raise money to keep a local food pantry from running out of provisions.
Joshua Sachs gestured to YouTube viewers like a polished TV commercial pitchman.
“But wait, there’s more!” the Hobart High School senior insisted.
If I was in the market for a new mattress, I would have attended last month’s fundraiser hosted by his school’s U.S. Army JROTC program.
Sachs and his sidekick video pitchman, Malachai Schavey, are both ROTC senior cadets at the school. Along with fellow cadets, they raised $12,575, an impressive amount from the one-day sale of new mattresses and related bedding items.
Typically, the proceeds from these mattress fundraisers at their school go toward its ROTC program or other school projects. This year the money went to a cause with much deeper need, a starving food pantry.
“Due to the pandemic, our shelves were getting very bare,” said Theresia Larimore, executive director of the Hobart Food Pantry. “There are not a lot of food drives this time of year. Our only option to keep food on our shelves is to purchase it.”
“With the hard work and dedication these kids gave to our cause, we were able to purchase enough food to get us through the summer,” she said. “We are so appreciative of their concern and dedication to feeding others in Hobart. I don’t recall any youth organization ever giving us such a large amount of money.”
The cadets surpassed their goal of $10,000 for this mattress fundraiser, which sounds like an odd way to raise funds but it’s consistently successfully for schools across the country.
“I work with over 40 local schools. It’s a year round business now,” said Chris Paulk, of Kouts, owner of a Custom Fundraising Solutions franchise in Northwest Indiana.
The fundraising formula is based on several different factors: the size of the bed; the type of bed; the total number of beds sold; and bonuses given to students who refer people buying a bed. Since 2016, more than $1 million has been raised by schools in the area for various programs and projects.
“These fundraisers are definitely the majority of what we do,” said Paulk, who also operates a Bedzzz Direct store in Valparaiso. “My store still does well, but about 75% of what we sell is from our fundraisers.”
At a Hobart High School event, Paulk met Scott Buhmann, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and commander of the school’s JROTC program.
“I was providing 120 cadet volunteers and Chris was in his early days of doing school fundraisers,”
Buhmann said. “Since then, we have done five fundraisers together prior to this one, a service learning project for JROTC seniors.”
On Tuesday, a few of those senior cadets — Paige Bordowitz, Lauren Cicillian, Alex Nolan and Samantha Paterson — ceremonially presented a check for $12,575 to Larimore, who was vocally appreciative.
“This donation relieves us of the worry of continuing our program,” she told me. “Hobart helping Hobart is what they did.”
The all-volunteer pantry feeds
175 families each week, more than 500 people, who receive a large bag of nonperishables along with milk, eggs, meat, and a variety of breads and desserts. (To help support the pantry, visit www.hobartfoodpantry.org.)
“We are one of the few pantries that allows clients to come every week,” Larimore said.
In previous years, the ROTC cadets helped the pantry at its autumn food drive.
“Due to COVID in 2020, we were not able to have that food drive,” Larimore said. “It meant a lot to
the kids, and to us, to do something substantial. This donation was over the top.”
The school’s JROTC program was negatively impacted by the pandemic, dropping in numbers from 150 cadets to only 95 this year, including 34 young women.
“My main goal is always to show the kids how to give back to their community,” Buhmann said. “So we raised the money we need for our operation, but then donate whatever is more than we need to whatever worthy program at the time.”
I joked with Buhmann about the cadets’ enthusiasm for helping in the sale of mattresses.
“The mattresses are not as exciting as what the kids usually do, but they do help pay the bills,” he replied. “Our cadets learn citizenship by actually being good citizens. They see what it looks like, they do it, and then hopefully as adults they will be it.”
As one of his cadets promised in that YouTube video, “But wait, there’s more!”