Participating in organized sports is an opportunity for kids to support and rely on one another, build teamwork, and work collaboratively towards a common goal. When spring sports seasons were suspended due to school closures, a Girls on the Run coach saw an opportunity to use these same teamwork and collaboration skills to support the community in response to some of the financial effects of COVID-19.
Tracie Gulit co-coaches Girls on the Run at Irene Reither Elementary (IRE) where her daughter Madisyn is in second grade. This would have been her third year coaching a group of 3rd-5th grade girls in running activities, along with empowering lessons that celebrate what it means to be strong, fearless and bold girls.
When schools shut down for the year, Gulit’s first thought was how to support other families at the school and how to give back to her community. She reached out to Molly Zinkle, her IRE Girls on the Run co-coach and the Family Services Coordinator with the Meridian School District and asked how she could help. Molly expressed a need for non-perishable food items to stock the school’s food pantry that supports student nutrition needs in addition to school lunches. Right away, Tracie said, “I’m on it.”
Just a few social media posts later and a a big donation bin on Gulit’s front porch was filling up with an assortment of food items and hygiene products. “People would add extra food on their grocery orders and drop it off, and some even had their grocery orders shipped to my house,” Gulit says about the generosity in donations and support she received.
Donations came from other Meridian families, but also all across and outside Whatcom County as her post was shared and people sought out ways to give back.
“Everyone was so generous with the contributions they made. Usually when someone came with food it wasn’t just one bag of snacks, it was bags of pantry items,” Gulit says.
She involved her 8-year-old and 4-and-a-half-year-old in the packing process as they sorted through food items and assembled bags with a mix of fruits, vegetables, and proteins to create multiple balanced and nutritious meals.
After packaging up bags, they brought four full truckloads of food bags to the school district to be distributed on the bus routes with school lunches to students the school knew needed extra food. Gulit estimates that the community worked together to donate around 150 bags of food with multiple meals in each bag.
“Most people were just so thankful to have a way to help,” Gulit says about the comments and sentiments she received from contributors.
When she’s not coaching elementary school girls with Girls on the Run, Gulit works as a broker with Windermere Real Estate in Whatcom County. Windermere also saw the need for additional food assistance during this financially stressful time and has created a way to send extra support to local food banks.
The program, called Neighbors in Need, runs across multiple states, as Windermere is a regional company extending from Hawaii to Montana and down to Arizona. However, the key in the Neighbors in Need program is that the money raised locally stays in the local community and supports the county’s food banks.
“In the last two weeks, we raised over $6,000 that will go to Food Banks in Whatcom County specifically,” says Gulit. “They made it really easy to donate, and the money goes through the foundation and comes back to our community.”
The Foundation invites real estate agents and brokers to make monetary donations, which they match, up to a point. The Windermere team can also extend the invitation to their network, family and friends as an opportunity to easily give back to local food banks providing necessary nutritional resources.
“For every dollar our offices raise, the Windermere Foundation will match up to $250,000.” the Windermere Foundation states on its webpage for the Neighbors in Need campaign. “The need has never been greater, so let’s all do our part so no one goes hungry.”
Creatively getting involved with community support is a family value in the Gulit household. Gulit’s daughter, Madisyn, previously organized a summer lemonade stand fundraiser to raise money for school supplies and backpacks for kids in her school in need of these items. This lemonade stand is now an annual summer activity, and she has helped raise hundreds of dollars for the Meridian Family Services to help give kids the necessary school supplies they need.
The Gulit family shows that teamwork isn’t just a skill that’s built through sports, but also fostered through little and big acts in the community to lift up and support one another.
