WHITEHOUSE, Texas —
The REC in Whitehouse is stepping up to help those who need an extra hand during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.
Executive Director Anthony Johnson, says the fitness center is still open during this time, however, members want to help others with groceries, prescriptions and anything else that may come up.
"Well, actually one of our members, they called up here one day and they said, 'Hey, if we have any seniors that need assistance, would you call me and I'll go pick up their stuff,'" Johnson said. “We put that out on Facebook, and then we started having members calling up here saying put me to the list. And then people commenting on they're also saying, you know, hey, how can we be involved? Can we do this? And so it has literally grown into an army of people that are willing to go out and help in any way they can with people."
The REC first posted the message on their Facebook page on March 16.
"So far no one's contacted us that they need help,” Johnson said. “We have not had a person and which is, you know, that's good and bad, but it's out there and we keep sharing it. We want people to know we have people that are in Troup that are willing to help, we have people in Whitehouse, we have people in Tyler. They're willing to do whatever wherever they need to go to help people out."
If you would like to volunteer or get help call 903-202-7181.
The REC is also offering a curbside pickup for students to grab a ‘snack pack’ while they are being home-schooled.
Curbside pickup will be from Thursday, March 19 from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
There are also restaurants in Whitehouse helping feed students during their home-schooling period.
“Just like in Tyler, there are restaurants that are stepping up to help out with kids for meals at lunchtime," Johnson said. "In Whitehouse, if you go to our Facebook page, you'll find there are different restaurants here in Whitehouse that are doing the exact same thing. We went around on Saturday and we talked to all the restaurants in town, and we had a great response."
"So we had a Yoli’s restaurant here in town, they did free lunches for kids yesterday. Today was Ribtown, they did free lunches for kids. Tomorrow it’s La Herradura Restaurant. On Thursday, it’s Subway, and then La Hacienda wraps it up on Friday of this week, he said. All the kid has to do is walk in and say that they're a student of Whitehouse school district and they're there for the kid's meal. They will hand them, it's a good hot meal. They will hand that child a meal that they can take home with them to eat.”