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One girl's idea sparks red wagon effort
As children, we were always taught that we could be anything we want and do anything in life that we wanted. One six-year-old girl, Lilly Welch, learned just how true that concept can be Wednesday afternoon as she watched one of her own ideas come to life.
Last spring, Beyond Homeless put a call out to the Putnam County community in hopes of finding families to donate one meal a month to its residents. Lilly's parents, Jonathan and Amy, received the call and found it to be a unique way to help their community.
"We ended up having a conversation with our kids Lilly and (four-year-old) Samuel about homelessness," Amy explained. "We explained that concept to them. Really, we didn't think much of it to be quite honest. They went about their business as usual, but a few days later, on the way to school, Lilly asked me if there were children at her school who were homeless."
Catching her off guard, Amy informed her daughter, that yes, there were indeed children at her school, Ridpath Primary School, who were homeless and in need.
"It was kind of a heavy topic to handle in three minutes of driving," Amy laughed. "Another week or so later, on the way to school again, Lilly asked me 'Are there children in my school that are hungry?'"
Once again, Amy informed her daughter that there were children who were also hungry, which sparked more questions in Lilly's mind.
"She said to me, 'Well, you told me that there are children who don't have a home and if they don't have a home, they don't have a kitchen and if they don't have a kitchen, where is their food?,'" Amy added. "Right then, I thought, way to go, mom, you popped her innocent bubble."
Thinking of her classmates being homeless and not having enough food to eat, weighed on Lilly for a couple days before she once again came to her mother with an idea.
"She said, 'Momma, I have an idea,' and boy, did she have an idea," Welch said with a smile. "Her initial idea was to have mom and dad write a check to eliminate hunger throughout all of Greencastle. She had lots of grand ideas and unbeknownst to me, she started talking about them to her kindergarten teacher Beva Miller."
Miller then presented Lilly's idea to the kindergarten class who helped come up with the idea of a red wagon food drive.
Following her presentation, Lilly then chose to go straight to her principal, Shawn Gobert, for approval.
"She had a 25-minute conversation with him about filling wagons full of food and going door to door to present them to folks who didn't have enough food," Welch said. "He was immediately on board. He thought it was great."
Lilly and her classmates worked hard to iron out the details, eventually choosing to donate food to Beyond Homeless and later deciding to wheel the red wagons from the school all the way to Beyond Homeless.
"Lilly toured the homeless shelter this summer and met with Tanis (Monday). She saw the pantry and talked about her ideas with her," Amy explained. "Seeing it made it all become very tangible for her. It was a pretty amazing thing."
With Gobert having resigned, Ridpath's new principal, Amy Johnson, was quickly brought up to speed this fall with the concept of the Red Wagon Food Drive and was also immediately on board.
"It's been six months in the making. I'm blown away by how much the administration listened to her ideas and were willing to work with her to enact them," Welch said with tears filling her eyes. "This whole process has just been so heartwarming. It's amazing how receptive people have been to this little girl's idea. It just kind of blows my mind that so many people in the community just flooded to help."
With the food drive gaining steam, it was then opened to the DePauw University community, which saw large support from faculty, staff and students.
With nearly 50 families participating on Wednesday along with countless donations from the DePauw community, the food drive donated more than 1,000 items to Beyond Homeless.
"Lilly has no interest in letting this end. She has a lot of ideas to take it further," Amy said. "I'm really proud of her. She's not looking at this as a solo adventure. She's always looked at it as her school community undertaking this goal."
The parents of the late Riley Sutherlin, Ron and Alena, also donated two wagons, one for Beyond Homeless and one for Ridpath Elementary, along with an entire wagon full of food.
Seeing her dreams pan out, Lilly not only led the way from Ridpath Elementary Wednesday afternoon to the homeless shelter, but has already begun thinking of more ideas to help take it further.
"Momma we did it!," Lilly told Amy later that evening as she was being put to bed. "We helped lots of people today."
And that she did.