Dear Friends,
Tis the season for thanksgiving, and I am so grateful for each one of our volunteers, and for each one of our donors. I’m also thankful for the sense of purpose we share, that together we make a difference in our community.
According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The purpose of life … is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” Together our purpose is to fight food insecurity in our community. We have been doing this since 2017 and continue to work together for this purpose.
Special thanks to Brandy Grattan and Amy Boudreaux for their work in raising money and buying food for our Thanksgiving Bags. We are thankful for donations of turkeys by Darrell Langworthy (Mark BBQ) and from Blodgett. Individuals have also been arriving with turkeys to give. It’s exciting to see this come together again this year.
Our finance committee has worked very hard to come up with a first draft of a budget, which will help inform the board as we make decisions. The fundraising committee continues to work on writing grants and exploring different ways to help us meet our financial needs. Our food committee continues its gargantuan job of supplying the food we give out. Finally our volunteers on our shifts bring all this work to the finish line by their direct work with our clients. Yay team!
Save Our Starving Children had a food drive for us which resulted in 200 pounds of food. Essex Middle school seventh graders recently donated over 500 pounds of food. Food drives help us so much! Please consider doing a food drive in your neighborhood, church, or local business.
We do have a change in our Board Meetings. We are now going to meet on the second Wednesday of the month, beginning in December. This will give our financial people a little more time to prepare their reports. Board meetings begin at 6:00pm and everyone is welcome to come.
October 2023
Purchased food- $10,024.00
Weight of Purchased food – 7920 pounds
Donations from organizations:
- Bimbo Bread – 54 pounds
- Box Car Bakery – 48 pounds
- Chelsea Approved – 77 pounds
- Essex Alliance – 721 pounds
- Essex Rotary – pounds
- Feed My Starving Children – 204 pounds
- Grace United Methodist – 42 pounds
- Jericho Food Shelf – 26 pounds
- L4 Collective – 170 pounds
- Nest Bakery – 3 pounds
- Pepperidge Farm – 109 pounds
- Poorhouse Pies – 38 pounds
- Price Chopper Bin – 283 pounds
- Price Chopper Store – 167 pounds
Donations from Grocery Stores
- Costco – 2933 pounds
- Hannaford – 1941 pounds
- Trader Joe’s – 1160
Sincerely,
Sue Miyamoto
Board President