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Empty Stocking Fund distributes food baskets to families in need
The News Sentinel Charities Empty Stocking Fund distributes holiday food baskets to families in need. Donations are accepted year-round at esfknox.org.
It all started with an inadvertent violation of the rules.
Imagine young Bill Weigel carrying jugs of milk from his father’s dairy in the late 1940s with his Boy Scout troop to store the change he collected from Gay Street donors. He got the idea to use the jugs after seeing Knoxville Journal volunteers do the same thing they did to raise money for the Milk Fund.
“The scout master came to our meeting at 7 o’clock that night and said Boy Scouts weren’t allowed to collect money in uniform. I didn’t know that,” Weigel recalled, laughing. Told. It didn’t matter at that time as we already had the money. ”
The Milk Fund began in the 1930s at the Knoxville Journal, and the Knoxville News Sentinel took over the effort in 1992, when it was created to accompany its own Empty Stocking Fund. Weigel has championed the Milk Fund for decades and now benefits Empty Stocking Fund recipients.
“The funny thing is, this milk foundation thing goes back a long time. I remember it as a kid,” he said. Of course, Weigel would eventually take over his father’s dairy, gas station, and convenience store business and greatly expand it.
This year, Weigel’s donated $7,000 raised through customer donations at the company’s registers during the holiday season and on special cappuccino, coffee and eggnog sales days.
Weigel said the partnership between his company’s charitable donations and the news organization’s efforts to help feed people in East Tennessee has greatly benefited the community.
“When Joel Christopher took over as editor, he was very involved and excited about the job, and he was always with us and the Weigel’s Family, which is held on the second Saturday of December every year. -He was a big supporter of Christmas. He was a supporter of ours and so are we. ‘I was just a big supporter of his,’ he said.
“This is one of my favorite charities because every penny goes directly to people. And it’s good that the money is 100% spent,” he added.
Our Empty Stocking Fund accepts donations year-round at esfknox.org. We are volunteer-run, so all donations go toward this effort. Money donated now will help determine how many families we can support in 2024.
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