Heart to Heart Outreach Program

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Mersadie Risner

Heart to Heart Outreach is a program designed to help children and families in the Fair Grove area that are in need. They have a board of six people from the Fair Grove community as well as many volunteers who help out. Heart to Heart began in 2008 by founders Doug and Lynne Gustafson. They are a volunteer based, non-profit, non-denominational program and have many outreach programs to help benefit those in need.
One of their programs is the school backpack program which began on August 22. Children in grades kindergarten through fourth grade who receive free lunches are eligible for the backpack program. They provide meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner over the weekend. They also fed 37 children through the summer food program. Volunteers can help out by shopping for the food, or can distribute and sort the food each week.
Heart to Heart also held their fifth annual dodgeball tournament at the high school on November 19. All of the proceeds go toward funding the backpack program. Last year they had six teams participate while this year they had five teams. They ended up raising $325 to continue funding for the backpack program.
Another outreach program that they have is their breakfast with Santa. It was held at Hilltop Pizza and Grill on Saturday December 3rd and all of the proceeds went toward providing Christmas food baskets for families.
Heart to Heart is a donation based program. They are always accepting food, and monetary donations. They also need volunteers to help package food on Fridays, fundraise for events, attend meetings, and help come up with more ideas to help those in need. If you would like to contact them for more information you can visit their website at www.h2hfg.org/ .