What's going on, April 21, 2009

Ordinarily, there won't be this much to read, but this is the first one, so we have to catch up!

FOOD DRIVES: Thanks so much to the Germantown Athletic Club, the Northwest High School Ambassadors, Victory Christian Church, United Church of Christ Seneca Valley and Sally K. Ride Elementary School for doing some big food drives in the last month! You collected some great food, thank you so much!

STORAGE ROOM: Yesterday, we rented a 10x20 storage unit to store our overflow food. We need sawhorses and a counter (to put on the sawhorses), to set up a sorting table with storage underneath. We also need a LOT of Rubbermaid storage bins with lids, to keep boxed items in (cereal, pasta, etc.). It would be great to have some "stick up" lights, too. There's only one little bulb in there, it's a little dark.

We had to rent some space, as we can't use part of the current pantry any more and storage was getting really limited. The pantry will still be the spot volunteers pick up their deliveries, we just needed overflow storage.

DRIVERS NEEDED: We're looking for April drivers on the 24th or 25th, 27th, 29th and 30th. If you've got some time, let Cindy know!

FUNDING UPDATES: We've gotten a number of grants last quarter to help us buy food. Our clients have really been enjoying the chicken, juice and butter we've been able to add to our deliveries! Mary Baney is working on some prescriptions grants to enable us to raise the amount of our assistance to $150 per client, perhaps more if they come through Emergency Services. The bank account was very low during parts of 2008 - in fact, we had to close the prescription program for 2 months - so we're being a bit cautious this year. Summer is a slow time for donations, food and funds in the best of economies. But we're hanging on and planning for the summer now.

CURRENT FOOD NEEDS: Rice (or rice mixes), mac & cheese.

WEBSITE UPDATES: Thanks very much to Suzanne Krall, Laura Totis and Abby & Carolyn Majane, who went to Baltimore to sit in a computer lab and have their volunteer process analyzed for some new website ideas. Lisa Harper and her team from Baltimore University even had a neat machine that measures how your eyes track when you look from one thing to the next onscreen. Hopefully, a new website and database will emerge from it all. We appreciate your patience, phew.