Category Archives: Gifts That Keep Giving

In October, Russell Buckardt came up to me during the First Presbyterian Church Martin Luther King food drive, wanting to fill me in on a gift from the church, the Buckardts, and their IRA.  Pam and Russell are at the age where they are required to take a minimum payout from their IRA. Their financial […]

I’m a senior, and I don’t have a car. While my relatives can take me shopping when they are in town, I really depend on FFGE and the box of food that they bring every week. This week, there was a mix-up, and I didn’t get my box when I was supposed to. I was […]

It is embarrassing, but even with my job and my husband’s work, there are months when there just isn’t enough money to pay the bills. We don’t come to the pantry very often, well, really, probably more times than I realize. But it really helps us stretch the dollars to be able to pay the […]

I arrived from Venezuela where I had been a successful attorney, earning good money to support my family. But the government changed, and they did not want me, or people like me, not just me alone, around. I was arrested, and I was going to go to prison: That’s when I fled to the United […]

We are big on Santa Claus. He’s got movies, TV specials, books and a seemingly endless array of elves preparing toys for the children of the world (and a few grown-ups). But did you know that thelegend of Santa Claus emerged out of stories about a real person? Saint Nicholas was an early Christian bishop […]

On Thanksgiving, we give thanks to God for that which we are thankful: Family and friends, thecomforts of home and food. The Thanksgiving of historic memory was a traditional English harvest festival, probably not the first harvest festival celebrated by Europeans, let alone Indigenous Americans. But it is America’s foundational celebration, in which people of […]

We received a blessing!  Let me explain: I was working the week after Christmas, catching up with administrative work, finishing a grant report, and getting ready for the next cycle of grant requests, when the doorbell to the warehouse rang. Standing at the door was a woman I had never seen before, asking, in broken English, […]

It will come as no surprise to any of our readers that non-profit organizations like Food for Greater Elgin really like large financial contributions. They allow us to feed people, meet people’s needs and make our community better in all regards. At this time of year, however, I want to lift up some small gifts […]

“Ten years ago, I was a few paychecks away from wondering how we would feed the kids.” Hear Mike and Executive Director Michael Montgomery explore what Gifts that Keeps Giving means, and why being a safety net for our neighbors is important.

“Give back to the people that helped you.” That’s one of the reasons Mayor David Kaptain is passionate about giving back. In this interview, Mayor Kaptain explains what the idea of Gifts that Keep Giving means to him and why he and his wife, Sandy, are so passionate about giving back to the community.