Three Rivers SD special ed teacher helps local families access groceries

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – This summer, a Hidden Valley High School special ed teacher, his students and other volunteers are serving families in the Three Rivers District who can’t access transportation and food in the area through the Summer Box Program. Through the program, volunteers pack and deliver 120 grocery boxes weekly with food that lasts families five to seven days.

It’s a program that’s only growing. A community member-based committee through Allcare was fast to give a $10,000 grant to support the program in May, and then again in June.

Allcare Community Engagement Manager, Skylar Fate said, “we have a lot of food pantries in the city limits, but transportation can be a huge barrier for rural families. What Dennis is doing is bringing the food to peoples’ doors. It knocks down transportation barriers, it knocks down food cost barriers, it knocks down gas barriers so families that wouldn’t have access to these awesome foods that they now do.”

Special Ed Teacher, Dennis Decasas started the program three years ago, because he’s seen the need firsthand.

I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to worry about the next meal I‘m gonna get. I mean, how can you focus on school, how can you focus on just about anything if you’re so worried and terrified about where you’re going to get your next meal. And working in the schools for the last twenty years, I see it. I see how impoverished we are.

That passion is what keeps former and current students of his coming back to help. Coleman Reimuller, a student of Decasas, helps with weekly packing and deliveries.

“I’ve grown to love these people and the people I meet,” Reimuller said. “I see children and husbands and wives, and I’ve seen their troubles, it’s not good, but if I can help out just that little bit, I can do it for as long as I want, which could be another twenty years, I don’t know, but I’d never stop, not now, not ever.”

For community members who want to participate or donate to the program, email Dennis at [email protected].