In January 2021, the Robinson family (Katrina, Jeremy, and their four children: Asia, Scott, Bryce, and India) created the Life Care Unites Foundation as a way to give back to the community. With the assistance of Chisom Housing and The Arbors at McCormick Park they were able to set up a Relief Shopping and Hot Meal program to help provide for the growing number of community members who needed help but didn’t qualify for assistance. The Robinsons are still working as a family three years later as they embark on the next phase of their community outreach with new locations and new partners: ROOTS Hair & Soul and the Church of God’s Word.
What has caused the new changes?
Katrina — Our move from The Arbors is simply to respect a policy change—no community events outside of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. So much of what we do works best outside of those times. The Arbors was a great partnership, and we wanted to respect everything they did for us, and just regroup and look at it as a chance to branch out, make new partnerships, and try new things. So that’s what we’ve done.
What has the Life Care Unites Foundation provided, and what changes are you looking at now?
Asia — What we do is run a free relief store—we’ll have a few more now— where people can come and get free clothing items and hygiene kits a few times a month. Sometimes we try to have little pop-up things where we can create hot meals for people from the community. It’s kind of first come first serve. Or sometimes we’ll deliver, too.
Brice — We have limits on a few things, but mostly people take what they need. They can still get a lot of what they need, and then they’re really happy. And now we will have two relief shops, maybe three.
Scott — I’m kind of the junior chef for the pop-ups. We planned the meals for the two years that we did. With new places, we’ll probably get settled before we decide how to go from there, if we still can do that.
Jeremy — Previously we had one big community partner day, but with new partners, we have the opportunity to start having separate, smaller ones so we can make an impact in different locations instead of just one. Our first will be with ROOTS Hair & Soul on Sunday, May 19. We just opened for business with them on April 15, so it will kind of celebrate that. The other will be with the Church of God’s Word on Friday, July 12. Both have been wonderful to partner with, and we are looking to possibly expand into Moorhead later this year.
