It takes a village................Thank you, Greene County!

Recently the newspaper held a banquet to honor and award the ten finalists in its “Greene County’s Bright Future” contest.

Several folks, including Heidi Puckett, Tina Davis, Christy Lehman, Debbie Bender, Beverly Stamm and Deb Pruett helped make and serve the meal, the city of Linton graciously donated the use of the building and we wrote about all ten kids and their good works.

With a week to go until banquet time, it was mentioned that there were no “prizes” for the kids. Our last banquet, “Difference Makers,” had winners who were adult, and a grand prize package was given to winner Debbie Bender of Worthington.

But, kids are kids, and kids like prizes!

We decided to use easter baskets, since the banquet was held just days after Easter. I, along with Rachael McKee, began to call, email and visit Greene County merchants and individuals, to see what we could do for these amazing kids. The response was so heartening, and helped us cram the baskets full.

Here are the results, and the folks responsible. Thank you all, so much, for helping to let the nominees know how grateful Greene County is, you are awesome!

A.M. Risher Pool

City of Linton

Barbara “The Cookie Lady” Hanauer

Linton McDonald’s/Gayle and Jerry Margraf

Linton Baesler’s/Dave Evans

Rachael McKee

Autumn Trace Senior Living

Worthington Tri Kappa

Linton Cinema

Pizza Hut

Sabrina and Logan Stockrahm

Ultimate Fitness Center of Linton/Laurie Pleake

Travis Coleman

First Security Insurance

Long John Silver’s

Thanks to your kindness, we were able to send all of winners home with a nice selection of prizes, and way, way too much sugar!

Patti is a staff writer. She can be reached at pattippdanner@gmail.com.