Feeding families and having fun.
These are the goals of the Kenosha County Division of Children and Family Services’ annual Feed 100 Families Food Drive, which took place Dec. 7 at the Job Center building.
For the ninth year in a row, staff members from the division’s various service units collected food donations for families in need and decorated their work areas in a contest of generosity and creativity.
County Human Services Director John Jansen again served as the judge, with the assistance of Division of Children and Family Services Director Ron Rogers and other county staff.
Jansen presented this year’s trophies to the Ongoing Services Unit for “Most Creative” and to Child Protective Services for “Most Generous.”
CPS, with its “Home Alone” theme, led Jansen on a booby trap-lined obstacle course that ultimately arrived at a closet filled with donated food and a pickup truck outside, with yet more nonperishables.
The Ongoing Services Unit transformed its office space into a series of gingerbread houses representing its theme, “Every Child Deserves a Home.” A display on the wall included 217 gingerbread boys and girls, representing children who were once living in foster care and in 2019 found their safe, forever home, through reunification with a parent or adoption.
“It was probably the most creative link to the work that we do here,” Jansen said, of the unit’s decorations.
Other entrants in the competition included the Court Services Unit with a “Camp Community Safety” theme, Prevention Services Network and its “Back to the Basics” theme, and the division’s management staff with a “Mr. Rogers” motif (a not-so-subtle allusion to the division’s director).
The food that is collected is distributed to families based on referrals from the Kenosha Unified School District and several human services agencies in the community. Employees decorate their work areas on their own time, not during county business hours.
More information about DCFS and its various functions is available at https://www.kenoshacounty.org/241/Children-Family-Services.