{"id":49903,"date":"2025-12-31T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=49903"},"modified":"2025-12-29T12:25:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T17:25:40","slug":"paulding-putnam-donates-1000-shoes-veteran-items-for-holiday-drives-staff-donates-2200","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/paulding-putnam-donates-1000-shoes-veteran-items-for-holiday-drives-staff-donates-2200\/","title":{"rendered":"Paulding Putnam donates 1,000+ shoes & veteran items for holiday drives, staff donates $2,200"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Paulding Putnam Staking Technician Zak Kauser, Member Service Representative Laurie Ford, and Marketing Specialist Maddy Lamb deliver shoes to Erin Schmidt, Continental Elementary Social Worker.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Paulding Putnam brought members, employees, and community partners together in 2025 to support families, veterans, and local organizations through a series of donation efforts. Each initiative focused on meeting practical needs and strengthening the communities served by the cooperative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From September through early December, Paulding Putnam hosted a Shoe Drive to provide brand-new shoes to school children and families in need throughout the co-op\u2019s service area. Thanks to strong community support, more than 260 pairs of new shoes were collected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A special thank you goes to Limitless in Paulding, which generously donated 100 pairs of shoes. Additional donations came from Paulding Putnam employees, board trustees, and members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoes were distributed to local organizations, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Paulding County Opportunity Center<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 New Haven Primary School<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 The Marsh Foundation in Van Wert<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Putnam County Educational Service Center<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Oakwood Elementary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 St. James Lutheran Church Food Pantry in New Haven<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Continental Elementary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Paulding Head Start Preschool<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 SARAH\u2019S House and Victim Services in Defiance<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Landgyn House Pregnancy Life Center in Van Wert<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These donations helped ensure children and families had dependable footwear for school, work, and everyday activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the fourth year, Paulding Putnam held a donation drive to support local veterans. Donations were accepted leading up to Veterans Day on November 11, the final day of the drive. In total, employees, board trustees, members, and community groups contributed more than 700 full-size toiletry items, including shampoo, conditioner, body wash, toothpaste, and deodorant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A special shoutout goes to the Happy Bunch 4-H Club of Paulding County, whose members donated over 100 items. All collected supplies were donated to Clothes for Joes in Fort Wayne, an organization that supports veterans across Northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio. For more about their mission, visit clothesforjoes.org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the donation drives, Paulding Putnam employees raised more than $2,200 for organizations making a difference close to home. Funds were split between:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Local school weekend food programs for students, including Paulding Blessing in a Backpack and Continental Packs for Pirates<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Paulding County Dog Warden<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Shriners Children\u2019s Hospital<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These efforts reflect Paulding Putnam\u2019s ongoing commitment to serving the communities within its service territory. By addressing local needs and supporting trusted organizations, Paulding Putnam continues to put the cooperative principle of concern for the community into action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on Paulding Putnam\u2019s community involvement, visit ppec.coop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paulding Putnam brought members, employees, and community partners together in 2025 to support families, veterans, and local organizations through a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":49904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2230,6],"tags":[24384,27660,27665,16444,19698,8981,3426,9567,13351,27663,2883,27661,27664,27666,27662,21190,3442],"class_list":["post-49903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-community","category-community","tag-continental-elementary","tag-erin-schmidt","tag-landgyn-house-pregnancy-life-center","tag-laurie-ford","tag-maddy-lamb","tag-new-haven-primary-school","tag-oakwood-elementary","tag-paulding-county-dog-warden","tag-paulding-county-opportunity-center","tag-paulding-head-start-preschool","tag-paulding-putnam","tag-putnam-county-educational-service-center","tag-sarahs-house-and-victim-services","tag-shriners-childrens-hospital","tag-st-james-lutheran-church-food-pantry","tag-the-marsh-foundation","tag-zak-kauser"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Continental-Elementary-Maddy-Laurie-and-Zak-Shoe-Donation-Drive-2025-copy.jpeg?fit=666%2C546&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-cYT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 06:02:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49905,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49903\/revisions\/49905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}