First Posted: 3/6/2015
LIMA — The Lima Samaritan House operates on about $30 an hour, so it always needs funding.
That’s why it’s special whenever anyone gives any amount of money to the emergency shelter for women and children, including Rita Hershberger, a local farmer who was able to give the organization $2,500 through Monsanto.
Hershberger and Shelby Anderson, a representative of Monsanto, presented the check to Brandi Schroeder, executive director of Samaritan House, on Friday at the house.
“It will help to continue the operation of the shelter,” Schroeder said. “Someone chose this. … It’s very supportive and inspiring.”
Hershberger, who has farmed corn, soybeans and wheat in Lima since the 1970s with her husband, Mark, applied for the America’s Farmers Grow Communities program sponsored by the Monsanto Fund.
The program, which has been going on since 2010, allows farmers to apply for money that they can donate to an organization of their choice.
When Hershberger found out she won, “I was very excited. I felt blessed,” she said. “It’s just such a neat opportunity to be able to help other people and women and children in our community. My heart goes out to the work they’re doing here.”
The $30 an hour has to pay for staff every hour of the day, for utilities, programming, case management and more, Schroeder said. For a year, utilities are $20,000, she said.
The donation and thought is really important to the organization, which provides for homeless women and children.
“To have that support and know even when things feel really hard to keep going … it makes us happy when people are thinking [of us],” Schroeder said.
Currently, there are 19 women and children in the house and the organization serves 300 women and children a year.
Which shows there’s “clearly still a need,” Schroeder said.
Hershberger learned “one person can make a difference.”
