December 18, 2024

Look who dropped by on Pantry "Eve" Night......The Food and Toy Elves! With 114 households on Saturday, December 14, our Pantry was maybe as busy as Santa's Toy Shop. Lois has been accepting donations for our Toy Distribution for a year. Many donations came from our community and the Hendersonville Apple Valley Woodworkers. Neighbors selected toys and then shopped for groceries. The 114 households represent 454 individuals and nine new families. Thank you Lois, Wanda, Liz, and Bob for filling your sleighs with toys and filling up the Pantry Toy Shop!

 We are grateful for Jack Grant from the Mills River Lions Club for driving the Eye Screening Van to our campus. The Lions Club offers free eye screenings. What an incredible outreach for our community and our neighbors! On Friday, two members of the Walnut Cove Members Association volunteered stocking the shelves and then announced that we are the recipients of one of their grants. These grants are only available to nonprofit organizations. Applicants must be sponsored by a WCMA who is actively engaged in the organization. With this very generous contribution, we will continue to provide eleven meals or 3 ½ days of food to our neighbors each week.

 On behalf of our Pantry Board, we express our heartfelt gratitude for your generous food and monetary donations to our pantry. Your donations will make a significant impact on the lives of those in our community who are struggling with food insecurity.

 For The Executive Committee, -- Kathy Noyes

 News from The Lord’s Acre

 Some 2024 numbers

We harvested 4,400pounds of produce this year, a 22% increase over 2023.

We recorded 500 volunteer hours in the garden in 2024, including our faithful weekly volunteers and at least a dozen outside community and church groups.

We grew 24 varieties of vegetables.

 Rest up…for now

We will likely not need our regular volunteer crew again until March, when we will plant some things in the hoop house and prepare for plantings in the field. These LAF updates will resume at that time.

However, there will be a few early morning Friday harvest sessions in January and February to harvest carrots, bok choy, and beets in the hoophouse.  Let Doug Kearney at know if you want to be notified.