Raising money for students in need

Yahoo

15-04-2025

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A fundraising effort to benefit the Title 1 schools in the Sioux Falls School District has wrapped up for another year.
Operation Hope & Caring raises money each school year to benefit students in Sioux Falls most affected by poverty.
'If we weren't able to provide that, I think there were a lot of kids that would go without and that hurts you as an adult to see kids having to struggle like that,' Levo Credit Union Vice President of Marketing and Business Development Jen McKeown said.
Operation Hope & Caring has provided more than $109,000 in assistance since 2017, and will add nearly $19,000 to that total this year.
'This is the second highest amount that we have raised for Operation Hope & Caring even though the Storm didn't have a season,' McKeown said.
Levo Credit Union started Operation Hope & Caring alongside the Sioux Falls Storm, and last year raised a record $20,000.
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'I was a little anxious when we started out the fundraising because the Storm had just announced that they were not going to be able to have a season. But they stepped up and wanted to help anyway, so they donated the use of Air Madness for a fundraiser that raised over $10,000 for Operation Hope & Caring,' McKeown said.
'It's very nice for us to be able to share with our families that our community cares about them enough to donate money that we can use when a family is in need,' Garfield Elementary Principal Kristin Skogstad said.
Skogstad said the school uses the dollars to stock its care cabinet.
'There are sometimes when families have come in and expressed a need for food or we have toilet paper, infant formula, we have laundry soap,' Skogstad said.
The school also washes clothes for kids who don't have access to laundry facilities.
'We were able to purchase a washer and dryer several years ago with some of the money from Operation Hope & Caring, and our lovely clerical do at least one load of laundry a day,' Skogstad said.
Skogstad says Operation Hope & Caring helps empower the kids to feel good about themselves.
'They'll come with that big person burden of knowing they don't have anything in their cupboards at home and so they'll come and shop and take what their family needs, and on the outside it says 'take what you need',' Skogstad said.
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Levo Credit Union partnered with Air Madness and KELOLAND Media Group on Operation Hope & Caring this year, and presented the check for nearly $19,000 to the school district at Monday's school board meeting.
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