May 2025 Letter to Volunteers

Dear Wonderful Volunteers,

Don’t you love all the community support Aunt Dot’s Place receives? Our Milk Matter campaign raised $12,000. Our goal was $10,000!  We’ve received a $20,000 grant from the Hoehl Family Foundation and $20,000 from the Town of Essex. We also received $4500 from 100 Plus Women who Care. The Because Craft Fair brought in over $600.00. People loved the treats you baked. 

We have a fresh new look in our entryway due to the University of Maine’s Operation H.E.A.R.T.S Club and Dean and Julie Bundy purchasing paint and painting with volunteers Bonnie and Geoff Tolzmann. Besides our new look, we have a new computer that was purchased with grant money.

Aunt Dot’s Place has been working with the Hedgehog and Fox consulting team, which has completed surveys and interviews of various stakeholder groups: board members, staff, volunteers, clients and community organizations as well as representatives from local and state governments. Thank you so much if you participated in a survey or interview. Thank you to Kaki who has led this effort and thanks to the board members – Paul, Alice, Max, and Amy who have worked additional hours to try to understand the data that has been collected to help us better lead ADP.

According to the survey, Aunt Dot’s Place is a welcoming and respectful environment. Clients consistently describe feeling seen, respected and valued. One client said that we “make you feel like a person … no judgment”. Clients appreciated the variety and generous amounts of food, and shared that we have made a financial difference in their lives.  Well done, everyone, whether you serve on a shift or deliver, sort, label the food, or buy the produce that our clients appreciate so much.

I want to also thank Anna Cadmus who has been an amazing board member sharing her financial wisdom and leading the creation of our first budget. Anna has also been active in fundraising and outreach events and has also served ADP by purchasing foods in our Special Diets section. We will miss her on the Board and will be starting a search for a new Board Member. If you are interested in becoming a board member, please contact me at sue@auntdotsplace.com. If you know someone who you think would make a good board member, please tell them to contact us, or let us know and we will contact them. We just put up a Board Member Job Description on our website which is at www.auntdotplace.com.

We are also looking for gardening help. This has been complicated by so many rainy days. Rob Kurth, who is leading this effort, will be available most Mondays from 9:00 am to 11:00 am. We will start with some weeding and in about two weeks, weather permitting, we will be planting more.  Other upcoming volunteer needs will be helping at the Big Beautiful Life Race on Sunday June 8^th.

April Food Summary:

Purchased Food: $16,724

Purchased Food: 10,126 pounds.

Donations from Organizations

Donations from grocery stores

Sincerely,
Sue Miyamoto
Board President