November 15, 2023

"Happy Friendsgiving! Because of the kindness from the pantry community, we are able to offer our neighbors the items for a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Generous donations of stuffing mix, cranberry sauce, gravy, and monetary donations allowed us to purchase turkeys, green beans, potatoes, rolls, and butter. Distribution of these items will be this Saturday between 8:00-11:00. It's all hands on deck as volunteers will assist our neighbors for their 3 1/2 days of food. As our neighbors exit the building, they will receive their Thanksgiving meal as a bonus distributed buy additional volunteers.

On Saturday, Christ School students worked in the LAF garden spreading wood chips along the paths. This Thursday Nov. 16 at 4:00 we'll have the final harvest for collards. Please join us for picking and fellowship. Joe, on Saturday, prepared a tasty rice, bean, and diced tomato dish for our neighbors. He shared that seasoning with a little onion added a savory touch.

Saturday, we served 145 households representing 522 individuals and welcomed eighteen new families. A special thanks to our volunteers who can assist in second language translations. (Tom, Lyudmila, Geerte, Dino, Danella, Max)

Donations this week included Bimbos and City Bakery with bread and bakery items. Bright Farms donated 25 cases of salad. Other donors include. Flavor-First-tomatoes , peppers, squash, zucchinis, cucumbers, Wal-Mart and Big Lots, misc items and food, Project Dignity-feminine products, Humane Society- dog/cat food and Milk Co-milk. Nativity Lutheran, Fletcher UMC, Calvary Episcopal, the Tabernacle of Praise Churches, and other anonymous donors contributed their time, food, and misc. items during the week.

On behalf of the Executive Committee, thank you to our volunteers and our area churches, civic groups, local merchants, and families for all you do to feed our community helping to reduce food insecurity. We thank you and appreciate your food and monetary donations.