Southeast Linn Community Center had a very busy holiday season in 2025!
This year, we partnered with Together We Achieve and five other area organizations to streamline the holiday food box sign-up and distribution process throughout Linn County. The new partnership allowed us to distribute November and December holiday meal boxes to more families in Mount Vernon, Lisbon, and the surrounding communities without duplicate sign-ups or long lines.
In November, we packed 275 boxes full of Thanksgiving classics — from green beans and potatoes to turkey and gravy — to help provide our neighbors with a hearty Thanksgiving meal. We are so thankful to St. John the Baptist Catholic Church for providing turkeys. Altogether, our partnership provided November food boxes to 2,220 households in the Linn County area.
We distributed December food boxes to more than 630 people in 220 different households. Overall, our collaboration with Together We Achieve and the Linn County Sheriff’s Office served over 800 area households. We are grateful to the United Methodist Church of Mount Vernon for donating holiday hams for the December food boxes.
Our Adopt-a-Family program provided gifts to 75 local families — more than 330 individuals! — based on their wish lists. To make sure that every family received their requested items, we worked with the Lisbon and Mount Vernon Community School Districts, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Seeds of Faith Lutheran Church, and the United Methodist Church of Mount Vernon, as well as many individual donors.
In addition, thanks to a generous donation from Toys for Tots, we were able to hold a holiday “shopping experience” for local families. More than 55 parents and grandparents selected gifts from 11 tables full of free toys, stuffed animals, puzzles, and games, which brightened the holidays for 207 local children. We also offered free gift wrapping!
We greatly appreciate all of our volunteers who contributed their time and energy to making the holidays shine for our neighbors. Thank you to all the people and businesses in our communities who donate and support these programs with their generous spirit. We could not do it without you!