Hope & Joy Food Pantry Newsletter This year we've helped 4,017 people! Happy Spring! The bunnies are hopping around and so are we!
By the Numbers: This year, our food pantry:
Operational Updates: We are preparing for our Drag Bingo Fundraiser! This will be held on Saturday, May 9th at 4pm in the basement of St. Stephens-Bethlehem UCC. It is open to all ages, and there will be food and prizes! If you buy your tickets ahead of time, a meal voucher is included! Please purchase tickets here and spread the word! We are also looking for any donations of prizes, if you are able to donate or know someone who would, please let us know. The Pet Pantry Coordinator from the Erie County SPCA reached out to us and offered to provide us with pet food for our pantry! We are now proud to offer dry dog food, dry cat food, and wet cat food for our clients. This is something a lot of our clients have asked for, so we are happy to be able to provide this new service! Community Garden This Sunday, we had a garden cleanup day! We had about 35 volunteers from Alpha Kappa Delta Phi Sorority come in (pictured above), and boy did they work hard. They took apart all the garden beds, de-weeded, picked up all the branches, tilled the soil, reinstalled the beds, and spray painted our wood pallets. We are so incredibly GRATEFUL for all their help! We couldn’t have done it without them! While we have made a ton of progress, 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: This month we would like to thank everyone who brought in paper bags this month after we had a shortage. These small items have a huge impact on our pantry! Thank you all for your generosity!
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, Jill Heaps, and several anonymous donors.
Grants: We had several grant wins this month! We were awarded $1,000 in gift cards from Aldis, $500 from the Creag Foundation, and $400 from the Food Shuttle of WNY. We have applied to more grants, including our annual HPNAP Grant and FeedMore’s Operational grant. We also applied to a program that helps provide hygiene products to food pantries, called Good360. If you know of any opportunities we can apply for, please let us know!
Looking Ahead: We have welcomed 2 new UB interns this Spring to volunteer with us! We are so happy to have students learn about our program and see first-hand the impact of community service!
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:
 Hope & Joy Food Pantry |
