Goodness never grows old
Providence’s Kate Rost earns charity stripe off the court by running Care Kit Foundation
There is an easy way to get to the heart of Kate Rost’s impact on the Providence girls basketball program. Just ask one of her teammates.
I did that the other day with junior guard Lauren Knight.
“Katie puts everyone before herself,” Knight said. “She is always worried about everyone else. She doesn’t look for fame. She wants to do little things to help everyone out.”
Off the court, Rost has excelled in the field of charity.
We’ll get into that shortly, but first an update.
Rost, a junior guard/forward, will be playing again in about two weeks after being on the shelf for nearly all of the season.
The reason was one of the worst-luck injuries you can imagine.
Rost was looking forward to a great season when adversity struck in the first minute of the second game. She was on the ground scrambling for a loose ball when an opposing player grabbed it, went up for a shot and came down with her foot onto Rost’s right hand.
Rost needed surgery to repair a broken bone on her ring finger. It was the perfect chance to feel sorry for herself.
Not this kid, according to Providence coach Eileen Copenhaver.
“Every day since (the injury), she has not missed a practice,” Copenhaver said. “She’ll do whatever the team needs. It’s not the fun stuff. It’s keeping score. On the bench, she’ll help in every way she possibly can.
“She understands team and doing all of the right things. She is beyond being a good person.”
Which brings us back to her charity work.
Rost is a member of Girl Scout Troop 60217 in Orland Park. She will earn her Girl Scout Gold Award in May.
Since September 2017, Rost has maintained her own Care Kit Foundation. She collects and provides toiletry items for the homeless and poor and school supplies for needy students at area schools.
Rost promotes her foundation through Facebook. She also has a website.
“Typically people will contact me and I’ll go to their house or we’ll meet somewhere and they’ll give items to me,” Rost said.
Among the places Rost hands out bags of toiletry items is the Daybreak Shelter in Joliet. She also has donated to the South Suburban PADS shelter in Joliet and has future plans to go to a PADS shelter in Tinley Park.
Last week, she sent a care package of pens, pencils and other school supplies to Bremen High School. She also donated to Our Lady of Guadalupe grammar school in Chicago.
Giving, Rost said, brings a feeling that’s second to none.
“I have a feeling of selflessness but also gratitude and kindness,” Rost said. “One time I had a bag of socks and other toiletries at the Daybreak Center. I asked a man if he would like some socks and he said, ‘Oh, no. Give them to somebody else. I already have some.’
“He was willing, even though he had very little, to pass on more materials so they could go to somebody else.”
Caring runs in the Rost family. “I’ve been a girl scout for 12 years and before that my sister (Grace) was also a girl scout since kindergarten,” Rost said. “I would always tag along when they’d visit homeless shelters. So I just kind of grew up in the atmosphere of giving.
“It has always been really important to me. Even after I receive the (Gold Award) in May, I’ll still keep doing the foundation past college.”
Goodness never grows old.