Snow has made its way to Buffalo and we are preparing for winter!
By the Numbers:
Year to date, our food pantry has:
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Households Served: 5,967
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Individuals Served: 14,855
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Meals Provided: 124,740
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Pounds of Food Received: 86,511
Operational Updates:
As many of you know, SNAP benefits were put on hold at the beginning of November, resulting in many families losing important access to nutritious food. While this was a source of distress for us all, we are proud to say our food pantry and our community at large stepped up BIG TIME to help fill that gap for many families. You may or may not know that in Erie County, over 19% of families qualify for snap, nearly 1 in every 5 families. So when our neighbors came knocking for help, we answered. In addition to our usual grocery and pantry items, we collaborated with other Buffalo area food pantries to swap food items to increase variety and even had donations from others of fresh produce to give out! We also received over 80 large spaghetti dinner meal kits from Mckesson and Wegmans that we were able to provide to any family who came to our doors with, regardless if they had an appointment or were looking to become long-term clients, so that everyone could make themselves a filling and nutritious home cooked meal.
November was also the month of Thanksgiving, and thanks to Feedmore WNY’s Turkeys and some stellar planning and purchasing from our own Kim Wilson, we were able to make sure our clients could celebrate this holiday with a traditional turkey dinner with their families. We had many of the staples you’d expect at the table, like green beans, corn, potatoes, and more available at our pantry all month long.
Overall, despite some of the hardships November brought us, we had a very successful month of serving our community, and we are very proud of the work that was achieved. We had record-breaking numbers of new clients and emergency boxes handed out, while also having more offers for volunteers and assistance from our neighbors than any month in recent memory. Thank you all for your continued support!
Donations & Giving:
This month we are saying thank you to Heather at Maximum Tan, Cleveland Heights Church, and Cheektowaga YES for their food drives! The picture above is from Cheektowaga YES as they dropped off their food drive donation. We appreciate all of the food you collected for our pantry to help our community! Thank you for choosing our pantry!!!
We have been receiving some donations from people finding our pantry on social media or hearing about us from friends & family. We appreciate all the monetary support, as we can buy food at a discount so your dollar goes farther. Thank you to everyone who has donated during this difficult time, it is so appreciated!!! You are making a difference to so many families!
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: Margaret Martin, Erica Eager, Jennifer Parrack, Barbara Bosinski, Robert Clifford, Cheryl Mills, Kim Wilson, Shawn Milligan, Nicholas Tobiczyk, and Jacob Rutowski.
Grants:
It is the season for grant writing! A lot of applications are going up as companies are budgeting for next year. In the last month, we have applied for 3 more grants and we are eyeing more already. We are hoping for a good response rate as our budget is facing cuts next year. If you know of any opportunities we can apply for, please let us know!
Looking Ahead:
We have partnered with UB and their department of Civic Engagement through the Empire State Service Corps. We will soon get our first volunteer through the program specifically focused on helping those with food insecurity through Governor Kathy Hochul's direction.
Thank you for helping us bring hope and joy to every table. Together, we make our community stronger.
