Good afternoon, everybody – Yesterday we served a total of 107 hungry families, including 215 adults, 140 children and 44 seniors, for a total of 399 people. We delivered food to 19 families, including the delicious prepared meals, which were provided this week by Maud’s Tavern in Hastings, thanks to Michelle Adams of On The Line. Every week we’ve had new families applying, and they’ve all recently been from the area, so they’re welcome to keep coming. If someone applies from a different area we give them food and information about food pantries for them to continue visiting near where they live. This just brings home to me that even this far into the pandemic there are people who only now are coming to the conclusion that they need help with food in order to keep going. We’ll help them all for as long as we can, supported by donations from the people on this list as well as groups and caring individuals in the community.
The next two Wednesdays we’ll be giving Stop & Shop gift cards as well as food, and we expect many more people. Our clients really look forward to those gift cards so that they can buy whatever they choose at Stop & Shop. It’s particularly important around the holidays. We don’t have space to store turkeys for so many people, but we will be offering whole chickens plus the gift cards. During Covid it’s hard to make the holidays festive, but we’ll do whatever we can.
If you remember what a wonderful time we had at the fundraiser at Sam’s Restaurant on Thursday, October 15, you’ll head straight for Hudson Social at 11 Station Plaza in Dobbs on Thursday, November 19. They’re open all day, even in the morning for commuters, and we’ll be getting a percentage of whatever food or drinks are purchased that day. They’ve got plenty of outdoor seating with heaters, plus they offer takeout and, beginning November 16, they’ll be providing delivery through Grubhub. Another opportunity to skip cooking and help the Pantry at the same time! See you there!
Marissa O’Hare and Kevin Messam and their colleagues at Dobbs Ferry for Social Justice have scheduled a food drive for us at Stop & Shop throughout the weekend from Friday, December 4 through Monday, December 7. We’ve had food drives in the past during which we’ve received an amazing amount of food. The shoppers in Dobbs Ferry are a generous lot, and what’s nice is that we don’t have to check the food for expiration dates because it was all just bought at Stop & Shop! Thanks in advance to everybody who will make it to Stop & Shop that weekend and will help us with some extra food. And thanks so much to Marissa, Kevin and the rest of the group for dedicating themselves to helping us for an entire weekend!
We were visited yesterday by Marie-Louise Miller, Director of the South Church Faith and Justice Learning Lab. Her goal, and ours, is to find ways that young people, teenagers especially, can help us at the Pantry. Due to the need for social distancing, we can’t have a lot of volunteers, either inside or outside of the church, but Marie-Louise, together with Robin Larkins, Co-Director Vera Halpenny and I will come up with safe ideas that will enable the kids and their parents to be a helpful presence for us at the Pantry. We need them!
We’ve got some plans in the works for exciting fundraisers in 2021. Stay tuned!
Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry 