Good evening, everybody – today we served a record total of 50 families, including 96 adults, 73 children and 18 seniors. We served 187 people today.
This past Monday two different classes from Dobbs Ferry High School, led by their teacher, Diana Castellano, delivered food they collected for the pantry. Volunteer Eileen gave them a quick tour of the pantry before they returned to class. Tomorrow, one more class will be bringing food for us. I’ll show them around as quickly as I can. We appreciate the help and caring we get from the high school under the guidance of Ms. Castellano.
We have a new volunteer, Nora, who drives a van and has offered to check the bins at Greenburgh Town Hall and Stop & Shop on a weekly basis, store the food in the back of her car and bring it to us on Wednesdays. It’s wonderful having the bins in various places, but it’s necessary to check them periodically. Tom has taken care of the bin at Irvington Library since the beginning (thank you, Tom), but the rest of the bins have been kind of hit or miss. The other day I got an e-mail from Elizabeth Hobson at the Dobbs Ferry Library, saying she had to move the donated food out of the bin and into her office. Benny ended up taking care of it.
By the way, anybody on this list who donates food, PLEASE check the expiration dates. I can’t tell you how many cans of food we’ve had to throw away, after spending a long time going over every can, so that none of the food we offer has expired. This is a rule of Feeding Westchester, and we’d be in trouble if they inspected and found expired food on our shelves.
On Tuesday we got our monthly share of produce from Feeding Westchester. For the first time, three pantry clients helped to put it all away. One client came to the pantry on the bus, even though he hadn’t ridden a bus for years, just so he could help with the food. We’ll ask the clients for help again at some point. It’s good for them to be involved in what we do to get the pantry ready for Wednesdays, and I think they like being involved.
A woman who lives in Dobbs Ferry and leads a yoga class in Manhattan asked her students to bring donations for the pantry. This morning she brought both cash and food for us. So, they’re learning about us in Manhattan!
I hope everybody is enjoying the holiday season. It can be stressful sometimes.
Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry 