We had a very welcome visit from Mayor Vincent Rossillo today! We were happy to be able to give him a tour of our operations and let him know what we need from the Village. He was surprised to hear how much we’ve grown in just the last 18 months and promised to help where he can.
We’ve seen lots of creative ways that the community has found to give to the Pantry over the years and I thought I’d share a Top Ten List with you. Feel free to copy any of the below or maybe this will spark a new idea of your own!
- One neighbor posted on Facebook that all she wanted for her big 65th birthday was donations of diapers for the Pantry. She received Amazon deliveries from around the country for weeks!
- Last year my daughter and her friend put flyers in all of our neighbors’ mailboxes asking for food donations to be left on our porch for the next week. Then the two girls brought all of their haul to the Pantry for delivery.
- When we were in need of grocery carts for the clients to be able to transport their bags of food from the Pantry to their homes, the local condo community, The Landing, held a fundraiser with their residents and donated $2,500 to the Pantry to be used for purchasing the carts.
- One young philanthropist harvested all of the veggies from his parents’ backyard garden and held his own farm stand on his corner. He brought us his revenue in a Ziploc baggie, pennies and all.
- We had one very generous donor ask his friend who owns Scaramella’s Restaurant to prepare packaged meals for 150 people which were then distributed to our clients. This donor picked up the whole tab!
- There are several anonymous donors who set up monthly Amazon subscriptions of diapers, baby wipes, and/or canned goods that are delivered to my house to be brought to the Pantry. If you are interested in doing the same, reach out and I’ll give you my mailing address (please don’t mail anything to the church).
- Various clubs and churches hold monthly food drives and deliver their bounty to us. Do you belong to any organization who might like to do the same?
- One team from the weekly Quiz Night at Pete’s Saloon in Elmsford used their winnings to buy 150 meals for our clients.
- Just this morning one mom came by the Pantry because she had over-purchased for her son’s birthday party. She left us with dozens of unopened bags of cookies and snacks.
- And of course, hitting the Donate button on our website gives us the most flexibility in serving our neighbors (make it a recurring monthly donation!). But please check with your employer to see if they might offer Corporate Donation Matching to double your money.
We served 114 families today which translates to 402 people in need. That’s about four times the number of people who came to the Pantry pre-pandemic. As things in the world start to slowly get back to “normal”, please remember that for so many, it will take a much longer time to catch up to where they were before COVID took its toll on the economy.
Most needed items this week: canned tomato sauce, no-sugar peanut butter (in plastic), canned beans, dried beans (1 lb bags)
This week’s newsletter was written by the amazing Pantry Co-Director extraordinaire, Gretchen Skaggs. She also wrote this byline.
Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry 