Hello, everybody – Today we served 39 families, including 59 adults, 51 children and 10 seniors. They were served by me, Benny, Carol, Eileen, Ellen, Lyn, Kevin, Mary Anne and Enzina. Enzina is a teacher, but because today was a holiday she was able to come specifically to read to and entertain the children who come with our clients. What a difference that makes! thank you so much, Enzina!
This week we have a total of three different food drives going on for us – one at the Masters School, one at Springhurst and one at the Dobbs Ferry Woman’s Club. We need all this food, and we appreciate each and every organization that makes this effort for us – and I know it’s a huge effort in each case. We’ll have to figure out where we’re going to store the food because the South Church annual Gala takes place on Saturday the 21st (I hope many of you are coming), and there won’t be much storage space for our food until the Gala is over. We’ll figure it out one way or another.
This coming week we’ll be giving out an extra bag of Thanksgiving-ish food to our clients along with their usual food. We’ll be giving out some shelf-stable foods like cranberry sauce, along with some fresh vegetables and fruits like apples and potatoes. Plus each client will get two $10 gift cards to be spent at Stop & Shop in whatever way they want. The Woman’s Club is donating several turkey breasts. We’re planning to give those gift cards instead of meat, but we’ll hold a drawing during the pantry to see who wins the turkey breasts. Then, the day before Thanksgiving, we’ll give pies to give out – including, according to Carol S., some donated by Dobbs Diner. Thanks, DD, and thanks, Carol S. for arranging this for us.
The day before Thanksgiving will also be a day when Jen Cadenhead comes to give our clients a presentation about nutrition. I’ll translate for the Spanish-speaking people. It will be wonderful to see Jen again after all this time.
This past Saturday a merry time was had at South Church because there was a free clothing boutique held by Spring Community Partners. Many of our pantry clients were there, and several others first learned about the pantry while they were there. Since Spring has been doing this boutique for several years, though not at South, the event went very smoothly, and everyone had a wonderful time. This event may happen again at South at some point. Hope so.
I looked at last year’s e-mail from the week before Thanksgiving, and we served about the same number of people. We had extra food for them, but not as much as we have this year. This is because we’ve received some generous monetary donations from people and organizations, and we’re putting it towards our clients. Hope we can continue at this rate.
Also last year, we couldn’t be open in the evening the night before Thanksgiving because of snow! Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a continuation of good weather this year.
Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry 