Rock Island Today

A local group focused on helping others in the community has taken steps to become a nonprofit organization. 

Quad City Pay It Forward Rock Island has been using social media to reach those in need in the Rock Island and surrounding area. 

“We are trying to bring the community together to help each other,” President Kathleen Brands told Rock Island Today. “That is our whole goal. If we could spark the community to help each other out that would be a much better community and people wouldn’t have to do without.”

Brands explained that the people they helped most often were the working poor.

“They are working but they can’t make ends meet,” she said. “We also work with the homeless. We try and get stuff to them as much as we can.”

They have a specific outreach group that seeks out homeless people to offer them free items, Brands said. 

She recalled one of her favorite deliveries to a woman who had left an abusive relationship and had nothing in her new apartment.

“We took a big pickup truck and we went to the Salvation Army and they discounted us a bunch of stuff and we loaded that whole truck up," she said. "We filled it up with furniture and household items.”

She said they had food, towels, curtains, furniture and more. 

“I think we really surprised her.”

It was the original owner of the Facebook page that sparked Brands’ interest in helping out.

“He just opened my eyes that there was such a need here in this community,” she said. “It is always nice to be able to help somebody that couldn't do it. Otherwise they just had no other means to do it.”

While they pull the paperwork together to obtain nonprofit status, Brands said she hopes the community will take more action. She explained that she would like to see more residents provide more items or money or, more importantly, help them find a space where they set up an office.