Good afternoon, everybody – Yesterday in the morning we served a total of 26 families, including 40 adults, 41 children and 9 seniors. Then in the evening Benny and I served another 5 families with 10 adults, 5 children and 2 seniors. That brings us to 31 families with 50 adults, 46 children and 11 seniors. We averaged 29 families a week in August.
Something exciting happened this morning – Denise, the church secretary, called to tell me a man contacted her saying he had learned about the pantry from Sacred Heart Church. He’s the nephew of an elderly homebound couple (he’s 97, she’s 86) who live at Children’s Village. If you used to work at Children’s Village you’re allowed to live there the rest of your life (it’s not true now, but they’re grandfathered in). They’re both quite ill, and he discovered that they’ve been living on hot dogs and boiled eggs provided by neighbors because they can’t get out to shop. This is just the kind of situation the pantry was created to help! I ran over there with a bag of food, met them and made sure they have our number and we have theirs. Their nephew was there, but he lives in Manhattan and can’t help most of the time. We’ll call them every Wednesday to see what they need and run some food over to them. Their nephew has also contacted an aid organization to visit them regularly, so maybe their lives will improve.
This Friday I’ll be attending the first of a series of workshops offered by the Food Bank. We volunteers will take turns attending the workshops. The one I’ll be attending is entitled “member agency basics”.
Since Bernard Harris’s obituary appeared in the Enterprise, we’ve received even more donations in his memory. Thanks so much to the Harris family for asking that donations be made to the pantry. It’s had a big impact because he was such a well-known and beloved person.
The Food Bank’s annual conference at the Double Tree is coming up. It’s a full-day conference where they serve breakfast and lunch, and there are a number of workshops and important speakers, plus a chance to network. I won’t be able to attend this year, for the first time, but we’re working on how many volunteers can represent us at this great conference.
We’ve decided that we’ll start offering eggs on a limited basis whenever they’re available at the Food Bank. This is in response to a questionnaire we gave out to the clients. One of the things several people asked for was eggs. We’ll see how they manage to carry them home together with everything else they carry.
Yesterday Benny came home from the Dobbs Ferry Senior Center with a big donation of school supplies. Thanks so much to Abby at the Senior Center for thinking of us. Our evening clients last night were the first recipients, and they were delighted. Earlier in the day a friend of the pantry dropped off three bags of baby clothes. One client was leaving for Guatemala and she took a lot of the clothes to give to the impoverished mothers in Guatemala who can barely afford to clothe their children.
So, nothing goes to waste, including the extra vegetables we had from our Green Thumb allotment, which were dropped off at the Irvington Senior Center this morning. The people were especially excited to be receiving eggplant. The couple I visited this morning also got an eggplant and were already instructing their nephew in how to cook it as I was leaving
Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry 