Porter County Aging and Community Service- PCACS recently had opportunity to spread good deeds

PCACS bus driver Maria Balcazar passes along a Good Deeds Day personal care items package to rider Norma Ladd.

Led by Porter County Aging and Community Services Section 8 Housing Director Valerie Martinez, we joined the international initiative, Good Deeds Day, to help impact our corner of the world.

We hosted a personal care items drive to help our clients and transportation service participants with essential items they use every day.

Martinez said we distributed around 50 care packages to our bus riders and we also will be handing out soap to clients in the future.

Members of the Valparaiso Nazarene Church helped PCACS tackle projects around its offices.

“We would like to give a special shout-out to donors Ashley McCracken and the Westchester Neighbors Food Pantry,” she said. “We are able to impact about 150 clients by giving them items that they need on a daily basis.”

She said the agency was also able to use funds through Amazon Smile as the non-profit is registered as a charitable organization at www.smile.amazon.com. When community members shop through this Web site, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5 percent of the purchase price of eligible purchases to PCACS.

The quick and strong response to our call for toiletries showcases how Porter County residents continue to make a difference.

I am so appreciative of everyone’s support and feel very fortunate that our agency is part of a community where giving back is truly like second nature.

Community service

Our team was recently on the receiving end of more good deeds!

Valparaiso Nazarene Church team came out to help us with lingering projects, including painting the back wall of our building, removing an unneeded portion of a fence, trimming some trees and reorganizing office space with the moving of a cubicle.

“We want to be a church that exists in and for the community. We simply want to be a blessing. We have a great group of people that want to make an impact and form partnerships with those who are doing so many great things for our area,” said the church’s Connections Pastor Eric Wood. “We had been connected with PCACS last year and because of all they do for the community, we wanted to continue to help by tackling some things, so they could focus on their main goal.”

He said getting out in the community is an important component of the church’s mission.

“It is not enough that we exist within the four walls of the church facility. We have been blessed and want to be a blessing to those who we share life within our community,” he added. “It gives us an opportunity to use the gifts, talents and abilities of our people and help connect them to different places that they may not normally have a place to interact with.”

It was a great work day and we thank the team for their service to us and our community!

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