{"id":13715,"date":"2014-11-13T11:51:56","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=13715"},"modified":"2014-11-13T11:27:19","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:27:19","slug":"60-years-of-giving-kacs-kicks-off-holiday-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=13715","title":{"rendered":"60 years of giving: KACS kicks off holiday campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><em><b>S<\/b><b>upport needed for local 2014 holiday food, coat &amp; toy campaign<\/b>\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><b>By Kim Chiomento<\/b>, <span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\"><em>Staff Writer, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_978286\" style=\"width: 235px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/SearsFamily-225x300.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-978286\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-978286\" style=\"border: 2px solid black; margin: 4px;\" src=\"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/SearsFamily-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"SearsFamily\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-978286\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The KACS 2014 Toys for Tots Co-Chairs: Mike &amp; Debbi Sears with their children Ben &amp; Maddi.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>KENNETT \u2014 This year, Kennett Area Community Service (KACS) proudly celebrates its 60<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of helping the lesser fortunate within our communities.\u00a0 Founded in 1954 by the simple, kind gesture of providing two struggling Kennett Square families with Christmas dinner; to its current-day, large scale service mission of providing 625 food baskets, toys and warm coats for families in the Kennett, Unionville Chadds Ford and Avon Grove Communities; \u00a0KACS remains an important pillar for those in need to lean on. \u00a0KACS is now calling upon individuals and businesses to please generously support their efforts again this season.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>KACS manages the well-known, and highly relied upon, Kennett Food Cupboard (KFC) and annual Toys of Tots and holiday food baskets campaign.\u00a0 \u00a0Kennett area residents and parents, Debbi and Mike Sears, have stepped-up to Co-Chair this years\u2019 Toy Drive following George Plumley\u2019s many years of dedicated service as its Chairperson.<\/p>\n<p>Debbi explains, \u201cI first became involved with KACS about six years ago, through my employer, Exelon.\u00a0 My department held a team building exercise to assist the KFC with their holiday food gift basket drive&#8230;we were involved with everything from collecting food, organizing, packaging and delivering the actual gift baskets.\u00a0 I was so moved by this wonderful event that I continued to coordinate Exelon\u2019s annual assistance.\u201d\u00a0 Based on a shift in need over the years, Debbi\u2019s efforts became focused on coordinating Exelon\u2019s support of the Toys for Tots portion of the holiday campaign.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy husband, Mike, and I not only began managing Exelon\u2019s toy collection, but started asking friends to bring unwrapped toys to our annual Christmas party.\u00a0 We also started promoting the campaign on FaceBook,\u201d Debbi explains, \u201cAnd, we believe that it\u2019s probably one of the best holiday traditions we could build with our two children, Maddi and Ben, as they grow older.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last year, KACS\u2019 Toys for Tots campaign delivered over 1,300 toys to local families; and every year the need continues to grow exponentially.\u00a0 This year, toy drop boxes will be located throughout Kennett Consolidated &amp; Unionville\/Chadds Ford Schools, corporate offices of Genesis and Exelon, local merchants including Bedbugzz and The Market at Liberty Place; in addition, community members should also be on the lookout for special events like \u201cToy Drive Night\u201d at Two Stones Pub and other unique area locations.\u00a0 If you have questions, or would like to help the Sears grow the 2014 Toys for Tots Campaign, please contact Mike:\u00a0 <a href=\"mailto:mi***********@****is.com\" data-original-string=\"xMbFTDc9I9O0cA3Wh9SHbQ==750lBtROLRdHxH7hrd48i+bDa8TKMlvWzWliONOEMrdf9s=\" title=\"This contact has been encoded by Anti-Spam by CleanTalk. Click to decode. To finish the decoding make sure that JavaScript is enabled in your browser.\"><span \n                data-original-string='e05Kb7O4q21D27RvRKCzvg==750HfNLbF5YjYSA+lrrAEVvkfT5pAb0qgz0v8KwnZMjiOY='\n                class='apbct-email-encoder'\n                title='This contact has been encoded by Anti-Spam by CleanTalk. Click to decode. To finish the decoding make sure that JavaScript is enabled in your browser.'>mi<span class=\"apbct-blur\">***********<\/span>@<span class=\"apbct-blur\">****<\/span>is.com<\/span><\/a> or 610-235-6185.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to toys, KACS is also in need of food (specific details can be found on their website) and monetary support to keep its important holiday campaign and year-long mission going.\u00a0 Financial contributions can be made by credit card\/PayPal on the <b>KACS website: <\/b>\u00a0<b>www.kacsonline.net<\/b>, checks should be made payable to Kennett Area Community Service and mailed to the following address:<\/p>\n<p><strong>KACS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>P.O. Box 1025<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Kennett Square, PA 19348<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><b>The KACS office &amp; KFC (136 West Cedar Street, Kennett Square) are open 9 AM &#8211; 5 PM, Monday thru Friday. \u00a0Food, financial and toy donations are currently being accepted.<\/b>\u00a0 If you\u2019d like to volunteer or to help organize a food, coat or toy drive at your school or business, please call KACS: (610) 925-3556.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Support needed for local 2014 holiday food, coat &amp; toy campaign\u00a0 By Kim Chiomento, Staff Writer, The Times KENNETT \u2014 This year, Kennett Area Community Service (KACS) proudly celebrates its 60th anniversary of helping the lesser fortunate within our communities.\u00a0 Founded in 1954 by the simple, kind gesture of providing two struggling Kennett Square families [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[3175,55,5498,5499,1817],"class_list":["post-13715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-avon-grove","tag-kennett","tag-kennett-area-community-service","tag-toys-for-tots","tag-unionville-chadds-ford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13725,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13715\/revisions\/13725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}