Good afternoon, everybody – Yesterday we served 96 families, including 190 adults, 135 children and 29 seniors, for a total of 354 people. We delivered food to 16 families who couldn’t make it for one reason or another. We have a stellar team of volunteers who are willing to drive food to people who are in need. Thanks to all of you!
For the first time ever, the Scarsdale Women’s Club did a food drive for us (they learned about us from Judy Whelan at Ardsley Methodist), and they drove the food over to us in a caravan of cars yesterday. They brought us so much food that we were overwhelmed! We’re still sorting through it! What a generous bunch of people they are at the Scarsdale Women’s Club. And the President, Rosemary King, said they’re thinking of doing another drive for us!
And on top of that Ardsley Methodist will be doing another food collection for us this Saturday, the 17th, between the hours of 10:00 and 1:00. Then hopefully Ken Stahn will deliver the food to us this Monday. They’ll also be collecting on the 31st, so put both dates into your calendar.
Believe me, even though our cup is running over right now, we need all this food. We’re still serving a lot of families who never came to us before. It has tapered off somewhat now that we’re not giving Stop & Shop gift cards every week, but we’re still serving three times as many people as we used to, who come whether there’s a gift card or not.
A great new development for us is the idea of neighborhood food drives. It started out with my block of Ogden Place. Then the neighbors on Belden Avenue did one. Then Micah Spellman organized a drive throughout The Landing, and most-recently the O’Leary family brought food from their neighbors at Hunters Run. The best part is how involved the children get. In the case of the folks from The Landing and Hunters Run, the children helped to deliver the food, and they were proud to be helping hungry people. Thanks to all of you, and thanks for educating your children about giving to others!
This doesn’t even touch the people who are donating to us financially. In spite of all this food we still need to buy fresh produce every week plus whatever products we’re low on, and we rely on people who donate through PayPal or by sending us a check. I thought there was only one person who was sending us a recurring, monthly donation, but there are actually fourteen individuals who automatically help us every month. My deepest thanks to every one of you who have made it possible for us to rely on that amount of money every month.
On The Line is back with us again for nine weeks! Yesterday our clients took home a prepared meal of roast pork, mashed potatoes and peas from the Cookery in Dobbs Ferry. Thanks to the cooks at The Cookery and On The Line for working hard to organize this for our clients. They ate well yesterday!
See everybody at Sam’s tonight!
Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry 