The Lotus Reach Story
From a mother and class room aide’s perspective.
The Lotus Reach started in 2015 by a woman from Porter County named Zel. Her two kids attended Liberty Elementary school in Chesterton, and she was an active volunteered in her daughters Kindergarten class.
There was a student that came to school one day with a shoestring holding up his pants that were way to big for him. Another day he was wearing swim trunks folded over his pants as underwear. Many days he wouldn’t have socks on. Zel began to see a common trend amongst other students, also recognizing the lack of confidence and distraction in some of these students.
Zel started by asking parents at the school to donate gently used clothing and the principal of the school gave her a small closet to store stuff in. She then had forms sent home that parents could fill out if they needed clothing for their kids. That first year she had about 30 families that she provided clothes for. And its from this small closet and a caring heart that the Lotus Reach blossomed. Zel knew in order to help more people she would need reinforcements.
In the beginning, we started by accepting gently used clothing & trying to sort through it all and have a donation center that we could pull from and provide to children in need. This was a huge challenge because of the manpower it took to sort donations, decide what we could keep and organize everything. We also had the cost of a place to store everything.
Over the years we have learned and evolved to make our processes more streamlined and efficient while still helping as many children as possible. And now the Lotus Reach proudly provides for over 250 families in the Porter County region though several programs and initiatives. We have goals to continue spreading the love of Lotus Reach and its influence to Porter County’s youth. Explore our site and learn how you can help today!
Why the Lotus flower?
The lotus flower meaning varies from culture to culture. In general, however, the lotus commonly serves as a sacred for purity, rebirth, and strength. Because lotuses rise from the mud without stains, they are often viewed as a symbol of purity. Since they return to the murky water each evening and open their blooms at the break of day, lotus flowers are also symbols of strength, resilience, and rebirth. Still another lotus flower meaning is transcendence: the lotus represents the transcending of man’s spirit over worldly matter since it blooms from the underworld into the light.
