St. Augustine Community Comes Together to Help Epic-Cure Get Refrigerated Truck

Members of the Rotary Club of St. Augustine, and the Club’s Past President Peggy Gachet, along with club member Alexius Ferguson, recently lead a fundraising initiative in partnership with the Delores Barr Weaver Legacy Fund at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, to purchase a refrigerated box truck for Epic-Cure, a local nonprofit. The truck is equipped as a food delivery vehicle for deliveries in remote areas of St. Johns and Putnam counties.

According to Gachet, Epic-Cure’s initial plans to purchase a van became a reality with a box truck instead, as initiated from a Facebook fundraising post launched by Ferguson. “Since we were in the middle of a pandemic, I started researching the nonprofit organization and decided to make a small donation. Through a conversation with Alexius about supporting Epic-Cure, we met with Sunny Mulford, the nonprofit’s Executive Director,” said Gachet. “During our initial meeting, Sunny mentioned the need for a box truck, however with the pandemic, she felt a van was more realistic as an affordable expense. However, I dream big and decided it was worthy of a Rotary Club project to fundraise for a truck, and not a van.”

During this time, Gachet was aware of The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, and the Delores Barr Weaver Fund’s interest in partnering with Rotary International  to support nonprofits in need during the pandemic.

Gachet secured assistance from Rotary Club of St. Augustine, Rotary Club of St. Augustine Beach, and Rotary Club of Palatka Sunrise. The Sunrise club was already working with Epic-Cure in support of food deliveries throughout Putnam county. The Rotary Clubs donated $27,000 and the Delores Barr Weaver Legacy Fund through The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida contributed an additional $34,000 to complete the truck purchase and operating costs.

Additionally, matching contributions brought the truck to reality through the combined efforts of the local Rotary Clubs, Rotary International District 6970, and the Delores Barr Weaver Legacy Fund at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida.

John Chapman, member of Rotary Club of Palatka Sunrise; Julie McClain, president of Rotary Club of Palatka Sunrise; Peggy Gachet, member and past president of Rotary Club of St. Augustine; Sunny Mulford, executive director of Epic-Cure, and Ken Mulford, managing director of Epic-Cure.

The check for purchasing the truck was presented on November 2 to Mulford by Gachet, along with Julie McClain, President of the Rotary Club of Palatka Sunrise, and Jodi Kotrady-Hatin, Rotary Area Governor of District 6970. The truck was delivered to Epic-Cure on November 6 and is currently being wrapped with nonprofit program branding for food deliveries to individuals and families in the most rural corners of the northeast Florida region.

Local Rotary Clubs and  Rotary International Foundation enables Rotarians to advance local, regional, domestic and world understanding, goodwill, and peace through improvement and funding of health and education nonprofits, and alleviation of poverty.

Rotary International is an international service organization with more than 1.2 million members and a purpose to bring together business and professional leaders who provide humanitarian services, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in their local communities and the world. It is a secular organization open to all persons regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, or political preference

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