It is the largest grant Care-A-Van Ministries has ever received from the Walmart Foundation.
On hand to present the $60,000 grant check to Care-A Van Ministries was Jason Klipa, director of Public Affairs and Government Relations for Walmart. Klipa says the Walmart Foundation awards grants twice a year and today's grant award was part of the Foundation's Hunger Program.
"It's a great way to give back to the Batavia Community and Care-A-Van Ministries is an amazing operation," Klipa says.
Paul Ohlson, president of Care-A-Van Ministries, says in the past year they were able to feed about 5,000 people. He has been operating the mobile food pantry to deliver free groceries, hope and prayer to those in need for about 13 years.
The grant awarded today will help not only in purchasing food products but replacing aging equipment on their fleet of vehicles and maintaining them.
Ohlson says, "This will go beyond the food, our vehicles are the heart of our ministry. God always provides us with what we need."
Ohlson giving a tour to Walmart Foundation representatives.
Pictured from left, Paul Ohlson, Care-A-Van Ministries president, Al Maiorino, president Public Strategy Group, and Jason Klipa, director of Public Affairs & Government Relations for Walmart.
Paul & Bridget from
Paul & Bridget from Care-A-Van Ministries do a tremendous amount of good in our Community. I’m proud to have them has neighbors up the street from me. The generous gift from Wal-Mart is sure to go a long way in Care-A-Van’s unselfish efforts to tend the poor and needy.
What a wonderful thing.
What a wonderful thing. Care-a-van is an asset to our community.
Not a more deserving ministry
Not a more deserving ministry in this area, what a great blessing.
When I heard Walmart was
When I heard Walmart was giving a check to Care-A-Van, I was like, "yeah, yeah," a token $500, maybe ... but I'm floored -- $60,000. That's beyond generous even for a company the size of Walmart. It's a very nice gift for our entire community since we all benefit in one way or another from the work Care-A-Van does.
How wonderful!!! When I think
How wonderful!!!
When I think of what a real ministry looks like, Care-A-Van is always what comes to mind! The work they do is truly good works! Kudos to Walmart to making such an amazing gift!
Charity is always a blessing.
Charity is always a blessing. Whether it be from a big box retailer like Wal-Mart, the Care-A-Van ministries itself or from individuals like you and I.
Charity is one of the things that have made our nation great, whether in disaster relief, flying a sick child to the US for a special medical procedure or from gifts such as Wal-Mart's to Care-A-Van
When we live in a community such as ours, we are so blessed by some really great organizations, Wal-Mart, Tops, Kmart, Home Depot, the Salvation Army, The Batavia Fire Department's Union, The Police Department and more have made charitable contributions to our community not to leave out all of our local churches.
I tip my hat to Wal-Mart for this massive gift to one of our most prominent and deserving local charities, I also tip my hat to so many Genesee County residents that also donate and volunteer for so many worthy causes in our community.
On blogs like these, we all too often get caught up in what is wrong in our community, our State and our nation, but we should not forget so much of what is so good.
All in all Genesee County is a great place to live in large part to organizations like Care-A-Van and our residents. Thank you Wal-Mart for recognizing that.
If you really want to know how charity affects us in the future go here
http://thebatavian.com/akaus/oakfield-student-collects-books-children-r…