Free admission to Charles City basketball games tonight with Project RISE food donation

Black and Orange Blowout with girls, boys basketball

By Joey Robel, Charles City Middle School

Project RISE is coordinating with the Charles City boys and girls basketball teams to put together the Black and Orange Blowout tonight (Friday) at 7 p.m. to help kick off the basketball season.

Instead of paying to get in, you can bring a canned or boxed food donation to help us with our “Fill The Truck Night,” and enjoy fun games and activities while supporting the basketball teams and Project RISE.

Project RISE is a student-led mentoring and tutoring program that also has a closet and a food pantry available for all Charles City Middle School and High School students. The pantry is also accessible to the community.

Project RISE started in 2014 as a small mentoring and tutoring program between middle and high school students. As these students made connections, they realized there was a lot of kids in need of basic everyday necessities.

Whether it be food, clothes or hygiene products, students were lacking the things they needed to be successful students.

That’s when Karleen’s Closet started, and from there we have greatly expanded. We now have around 80 mentors and a successful student food pantry in both the middle and high school, along with a closet full of clothing.

Project RISE spends a lot of time volunteering in Iowa and in our community. We have raked leaves, shoveled snow, worked at the Northeast Iowa Food Bank, catered parties, and more.

We also do a lot of fundraising to raise money and resources for our food pantry and closet.

We have run multiple food drives in our community and in our school. However, food goes out quickly, and we are anticipating a difficult holiday season.

We would appreciate it if you would keep Project RISE in mind this winter season. We have donation boxes at the high school and middle school offices, along with Synergy, Hy-Vee, Snap Fitness, the Charles City Family YMCA, and Fidelity Bank and Trust.

We also have an amazon list where you can order items, and have products shipped directly to us. Use this link: www.charlescitypress.com.

Items the pantry could use include:

• Macaroni & cheese

• Water

• Soup

• Ramen noodles

• Pop Tarts

• Oatmeal packets

• Hamburger Helper and any other quick, easy, meals

— Joey Robel is an 8th grade student athlete at the Charles City Middle School, participating in football, track, bowling and soccer.