Monthly Archives for August 2015

Beginning on September 10th, we will be expanding our open hours for client food distribution to include Thursday evenings from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. We feel that there is an unmet need for existing and potentially new clients who work during the day and / or on Saturday who have difficulty picking up food during our current open hours. Our plan is to distribute a note to all of our existing clients to let them now of this additional open time. We will also be advertising our expanded hours to the community.

Thursday nights may be a little slow to start but we see this also as an opportunity to bring in new volunteers during this time to orient them in what we do and to be able to also have some slow time to restock shelves, break down boxes and perform other duties in the pantry that are difficult to accomplish during our more busy open hours.

Please consider volunteering during this time if you have found yourself unable to volunteer during our existing open hours because of your schedule. You can call me at 400-4920 or e-mail me at [email protected] for more information.

In conjunction with Meals on Wheels, we have stepped forward and taken over the responsibility of providing supplemental food to Meals on Wheels recipients in our service area who are not able to leave their home. Meals on Wheels provides two meals a day, Monday through Friday, to many people. However, some of their clients are not able to leave their home so they are left without food on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.

That is where we come into the picture. Our responsibility will be the following:

• Register eligible clients with our pantry
• Deliver food to those clients

Our next food order has been made. You can view it here.

It is scheduled for delivery on 8/11 @ 9:00 AM. Even though we were a little disappointed that there was no 10.5 oz soup available, we are happy to say that we are getting the following items that we don’t usually get:

• Eggs (45 dozen small)
• Colby Cheese (3 x 8lb cases)
• Produce Variety Bag (30 x 5lb)

There are millions of people across the country that rely on local food pantries to supplement their food needs. Your next door neighbor may be going to a food pantry and you don’t even know it. The food that we distribute at our pantry comes from several sources. Our main source is from the Food Bank of Western New York. We also receive food directly from food drives, from merchants and from people just walking in the door with a bag of food they want to donate. However, nearly all of the food we receive is packaged, canned and non-perishable. We don’t have the facilities to handle fresh food. The primary goal at our pantry is to treat our clients with respect and dignity. How can we do that when you see a client week after week and you can only give them a bag of canned goods when you know they deserve fresh, healthy food just like those of us who can afford to go to a store and buy it?

Now we can provide that fresh food. Now YOU can provide that fresh food.

Our pantry has registered with a program called AmpleHarvest.org It is a program that connects backyard gardeners with local food pantries. Once this connection is made, a gardener can arrange with the pantry a time and day that is best for both to drop off just harvested food so it can quickly be distributed without the need for special handling at the pantry.

Please take a moment to view this video. If you have a backyard food garden, please consider registering and connecting with a pantry close to you so you can donate your excess harvest. If you don’t have a garden, please share this program with someone who does.