July 2026  HOPE & JOY FOOD PANTRY Hope & Joy Food Pantry Newsletter This year we've helped 8,184 people! Our garden is blooming just in time for your summer visit! Fundraisers: Saturday, July 25th at 6pm we will be hosting our 2nd annual “A Night in the Garden” fundraiser! Sit under the fairy lights in our beautiful community garden, now featuring a variety of heirloom vegetables. Enjoy mixed drinks (mocktails available) and some homemade hors d’oeuvres. Pre-sale tickets are on sale now for $20, otherwise it’s $25 at the door. Reserve your spot here! Give 716 is only a few days away! This is one of Buffalo’s biggest giving events! If you give between Wednesday 7/15 at 7:16pm and Thursday 7/16 at 11:59pm, your donation will be matched by local businesses during power hours. That means your dollar is doubled! If you donate certain amounts, you are also eligible to receive prizes! See the schedule below! Donate here.  By the Numbers: This year, our food pantry:
Operational Updates: Our goal this year was to increase our number of clients served by 10% by halfway through the year. We are happy to report that we have exceeded our goal, and we have already served 20.8% more people than last year at this time! Thank you to everyone for your continued support of our pantry. This wouldn’t be possible without your contributions. We would love to have more volunteers on Mondays. We start packing orders at 4pm and are open until 7pm. If you or anyone you know is interested, please join us! No sign up required, just come when you are able to. Community Garden On 6/17, we hosted 7 volunteers from United Way’s “Day of Caring”. They put down landscaping fabric and gravel in between all the garden beds. These walkways will allow for easier access and maintenance. It also means we don’t have to spend time weed wacking. We are grateful for all their hard work! This past Wednesday, we had our first harvest day! We plucked 13.2 lbs of lettuce and beans! See the picture at the top of the newsletter. Now that these plants have started producing, we will be able to regularly pick them every couple weeks as they re-grow fast! We are excited to offer these fresh, nutritious vegetables at no cost to our food pantry clients! We were 1 of 45 gardens to be featured in the Amherst Garden Walk this weekend. We are always proud to show what we have growing in our garden. We love sharing fun facts about our unique, heirloom vegetables and what sets them apart from supermarket produce. We are always looking for regular garden help. If you are able to donate any extra tools, we are looking for: gloves, trowels, shovels, nails, tomato cages, gardening wire, paint brushes, shears, sprayers, stakes, fertilizer, and garden hoses. If you are a gardener or have an interest in learning, we would love to have more garden volunteers this summer! Please reach out! Donations & Giving: Thank you to Donna Sauer for donating hygiene products, such as tooth brushes, toothpaste, and deodorant. Thank you to The Vegan Grocery Store in North Tonawanda for donating food that they weren’t able to sell in store due to non-vegan packaging. If you'd like to spread the word about our pantry, we have a donation box with brochures available outside our entrance. You can also share our Facebook or website links down below. Your gifts—big or small—help us feed our neighbors year-round. Thank you to all our individual donors this month: Kim Wilson, Nicholas Tobiczyk, Shawn Milligan, Jacob Rutowski, Jennifer Parrack, Pamela Netzel, Beverly Kemp, Janet Wagner, Vasiliki Neofotistos, and several anonymous donors. Grants: We were awarded $2,000 from Community Ministries, based on Pastor Ruth’s recommendation. Thank you again for recommending us!!! We have also been awarded our annual funding from FeedMore WNY for 2026-2027. We are also applying to several other grants, such as the WNY Forward Fund, the Community Food Projects Competitive Grants Program, and the Gus Schumach Nutrition Incentive Program. If you know of any funding opportunities we can apply for, please let us know! Looking Ahead: On July 22nd, we will be hosting 15 volunteers from M&T Bank. They will be helping prep our garden for our Night in the Garden fundraiser coming up. They will be finishing up the staining on the fence, hanging the lighting, and overall cleaning up the beds. We are looking forward to having them! We are considering teaching some classes this summer, such as: how to grow salads in a patio pot, how to save seeds, and companion planting: how to utilize your space. If these or similar subjects are of interest to you or people you know, please let us know! We are looking to gauge interest and get feedback on what classes could be useful to our community! Thank you for helping us bring hope and joy to every table. Together, we make our community stronger. Other ways to support us:  Volunteer with us Sundays 12-3pm Mondays 4-7pm Wednesdays 10am-5pm Volunteer duties typically include picking and packing grocery orders, bringing groceries out to client's cars when they arrive for their appointments, and re-stocking the shelves with food. Community Garden In summer, we grow a community garden and need help maintaining it: de-weeding, watering, and general clean-up of the beds.  Upcoming Events
Hope & Joy Food Pantry |
