Why We Are Raising Funds for #GivingTuesday
DONATE NOWWonderful volunteers from our 17 food pantries spend countless hours in November and December preparing special holiday meal packages for their patrons.
They:
- ask for food donations and coordinate food drives for their most-needed items,
- shop for needed food at the Community FoodBank of NJ,
- clip coupons and negotiate bulk discounts with local grocery stores to purchase food to fill in the gaps,
- rent trucks and/or rely on volunteers to transport the food from the donors, the food bank, and local grocery stores to the pantries;
- find ways to creatively store the food. Given that many of the pantries are small, and without means to store perishables, this phase of the process is particularly challenging!;
- and, finally, pack the food with care for a special holiday meal distribution!
Let’s make this a little bit easier on our pantries, and also allow their patrons the dignity of shopping for their own holiday meals!
Our Goal
We will use funds from our inaugural #GivingTuesday campaign to purchase $20 grocery store gift cards for our MEND member food pantries. The pantries will provide the gift cards to their patrons, so that their patrons may shop for and prepare home-cooked holiday meals of their choosing.
Our goal for this campaign is $5,100, which would allow us to provide each of our 17 food pantries with 15 $20 grocery store gift cards.
Impact
255 clients would be able to shop for the own holiday meals, and get to choose what they would like to cook and serve their families.
Our pantry managers would get to take a little break from some of the work that goes in to feeding so many people who look to them for help this time of year.
Meet Some of our Amazing Food Pantry Managers!
Thank You
Thanks for your continued support of our efforts to get more and better food to those who need it most (and for helping to streamline the holiday meal logistics for our hardworking food pantry volunteers)!