Local Pittsburg brewery, Drop the H, gave back to the community by donating $3000 to the Pittsburg Big Brothers Big Sisters non-profit organization.  

The funds for the donation come from a specific community beer tank, and the money made from that tank go towards a non-profit. 

“…Our brew master, Mark McClain, came up with the idea to do a community tank,” said Becky Harris, Drop the H general manager. “All proceeds from that tank would go to that non-profit. So Big Brothers Big Sisters was kind of the first trial run for them and thankfully it worked out great.” 

According to Monica Holmes, Southeast Kansas area director for Big Brothers Big Sisters, they were very excited to receive the donation. 

“It was super exciting,” Holmes said. “It was cool to learn about the community tank in the first place and how passionate they are about giving back to the community and different organizations. So then to hear they wanted to offer to Big Brothers Big Sisters for their first one was pretty cool.” 

Holmes said the money will go towards funding the non-profit as a whole but will also impact the matches made through the organization. 

“It will fund it as a whole, so even though we’re a non-profit, we run just like any other business and have a lot of expenses,” Holmes said. “The first thing that came to my mind when we got that donation was that it usually costs a little over $1000 to match each child. That’s their case management, background checks, the screening and all that. So, in my mind the first thing I thought was ‘Wow, that’s so cool- that’s three kids right there we can match.” 

The donation from Drop the H will make a difference in the lives of youth in the program, especially as it inspired an anonymous donor to match the donation 100%, according to Holmes. 

“…so, we’ve got to double their donation, so really that’s like us being able to serve six more youth,” Holmes said. 

According to Harris, the main idea behind the community tank and donations is to become more involved in the community. 

“The main goal of everything is just to be part of the community,” Harris said. “Pittsburg is a small town, but not a small town at the same time, and there’s a lot of different people here who want to be part of the community but not everyone can provide large sums of money.” 

Harris said, that as a brewery, it was easy to come up a way to give back to the community through their business.  

“But something as simple as us being able to brew beer, which is really what we do, we can use that to support the community and be part of it and give back… we’re already brewing beer, so why not go ahead and help someone out,” Harris said. 

Holmes said that by donating to Big Brothers Big Sisters, Drop the H was impacting not only the current community but also the future of the community. 

“But what I think a lot of people forget about is the future of our community are these kids, so it’s cool when people realize that and want to invest in, not only the future of our community, but the future of these kids because they are our future,” Holmes said. “It does make a big difference… it’s really cool to see the impact that’s made in the lives of these kids and a little bit of time each month can be a game changer for these kids.”  

Drop the H will continue to have community tanks and they fundraise for each organization until the tank is empty, which generally takes three to four months.