Supporting Millwood Community During Pandemic

Some may be wondering what Millwood Impact has been up to over the past couple months since all this Covid-19 stuff began. With schools shut down, we haven’t been able to have our after-school programs, and therefore our mentors haven’t been able to connect very well with the students.  But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been active in living out our mission statement of, "investing in the holistic well-being of youth and families in the Millwood community.”

Our after-school program families have been checked on every week to see how we can support them. This time has allowed for website content and launch, grant writing, preparing for fall programs and connecting with donors.

Since we received funds from the Rayce Rudeen Foundation to purchase a 12-passenger van, we have used that van to really care for the youth and their families. Starting in mid March, Millwood Impact has been working extremely close with 2nd Harvest Food Bank, West Valley School, and the Youth Director at Millwood Presbyterian church to help get food to families in need. This has had many moving parts to it, but over those weeks I have made many runs to the 2nd Harvest warehouse to pick up hundreds of bags of food for Orchard Center Elementary kids who are a part of the Bite2Go program. I have picked up pallets of food, and gathered teams in the community center where we separated the food into many bags for West Valley High School families. Myself and Micah Sanders from Millwood Church have made many trips to Centennial Middle School where we pick up Bite2Go bags and then use our van to distribute food to 24 different families who attend Centennial and count on this food over the weekends.  I have used the van to pick up pizza and deliver lunch to the school staff who are handing out breakfast and lunch to families at each of the schools in the district.  Lastly, for the past several weeks and for many more ahead, I have taken the lead in partnership with 2nd Harvest, and we are having a Fresh and Frozen food distribution every Wednesday in the Millwood Presbyterian Church parking lot where we have food for up to 250 families. West Valley District office has helped spread the word and the turnouts have been phenomenal.

Thank you to everyone who supports Millwood Impact on every level and please contact us with any questions or if you are interested in helping out send us an email.

Brandon Comella
Executive Director
Millwood Impact