Friday, October 30, 2009

MoCo Infants & Toddlers Program Helps!

Mary Toohey, of the Montgomery County Infants and Toddlers Program in Germantown, very kindly dropped off a good collection of food collected at the office. Lots of nice things, a good variety! And just enough peanut butter to keep us from having to buy more this week...

We did, however, purchase over $600 of canned veggies, tuna and cereal yesterday, to keep us going a couple more weeks. The Emergency Food Program has been REALLY busy this week; we're running a day behind on phone calls right now.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

The Flu Hits Germantown

It seems like almost half our Emergency Food clients have the flu! We're delivering to a lot of people unable to get out because of illness lately... Some are "regular" clients, others are new and desperate for help. We're hearing tales of entire neighborhoods coming down with the flu at the same time! Of course, people are unable to work when they're ill, so it's even harder to make ends meet.

Germantown HELP is looking into purchasing fresh oranges and apples to (at least temporarily) deliver with our usual food, to help bolster everyone's immune systems. We're also looking for some caring people interested in helping on a "Special Care" committee to check up on our most disabled, homebound clients from time to time.

The Fendrick Family Donates Half a Steer!

The Fendrick Family purchased a 4-H steer and donated half of it to Germantown HELP! After being expertly processed and sealed into sturdy vacuum bags by Mt. Airy Locker, it now fills our freezers with beautiful roasts, steaks, stew meat and 168 pounds of ground beef in one-pound tubes. What a huge treat for our clients to have such premium meat! You don't find marbling like that on meat at the supermarket, goodness. Thank you very much, Fendricks!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Brady Gebhardt's Chivalrous Act


As a Kingsview Middle School 7th-grader, Brady Gebhardt was required to perform a "chivalrous act." Instead of mowing a lawn or babysitting, he decided to take on a bigger project. So he sent a letter out in his neighborhood that he was collecting food for Germantown HELP and collected over 170 items! He and his mom Stephanie dropped them off at the pantry this afternoon. Thanks for thinking of us, Brady!!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Food donations

No posts for weeks, now three in one day! We're playing catch-up around here...

Thanks so much to Mother Seton Parish, for doing another great September food drive! Thanks to Sarah Burkholder of Messiah Lutheran Church, for bringing in Messiah's excellent food donation last week and staying to put it ALL away. Darnestown Presbyterian Church packs boxes the first weekend of every month; they bring a nice pile of food with them and tidy the pantry beautifully, too! Judy Brodbeck hauled in another donation from Victory Christian Church a few weeks ago, thanks as always.

Despite all this excellent donating, we are buying a lot of food, as usual for this time of year. We need it all: Spaghetti sauce & pasta, soups, veggies, fruits, cereal, peanut butter, tuna, and rice. We are also collecting food specific to our Emergency Services outreach: Soup, ravioli, veggies and fruit in pop-top cans; breakfast bars; and other easy-to-eat nonperishable snacks and foods that can be used with no refrigeration and minimal cooking facilities.

Holiday Giving-specific requests are: New toys; Giant gift cards ($10 and $20); and Target gift card ($15-$20). Referrals are already pouring in, it will be Thanksgiving before we know it!

Germantown Community Coalition

We had a lovely meeting of the Germantown Community Coalition this morning... Present were Megan Foley (Sugarloaf Congregation of Unitarian Universalists), Toni Woods (Mother Seton Parish), Tamara Leonard-Lara (Darnestown Presbyterian), Betty Velthuis (Neelsville Presbyterian), Donna Rojas (Northwest High School PTSA), Marissa Chubb (Hughes Network Systems), Mike Ginsberg (Germantown Athletic Club) and Mike Knapp (Montgomery County Council).

We discussed this year's Holiday Giving Project: The Thanksgiving referral cutoff is October 30th; the December gift cutoff is November 30th. Last year, we had 912 households in the Project; this year, maybe we'll go over 1,000! I hope not, but it could easily happen... We need SPACE for the month of December, so we have a place to sort all the toys. If we could distribute from the same space, it would be perfect.

We are mulling over some new ideas for the Emergency Food Program. We are looking to establish some direct relationships with area agencies, churches and senior living facilities, to provide bags of food to their clients as a group once a month. If you have a small group (3-4 people, students OK as long as there's one adult) that could pack some bags and drop them off one afternoon a month, we'd love to hear from you!

Brigid Ryan came to the meeting to speak on the important topic of Continuing Operations (COOP) planning. A very high percentage of organizations that don't plan for emergency (fire, flood, power outages) never recover after they occur. Think about it BEFORE you have a crisis! The Montgomery County Volunteer Center is also looking to set up agreements with area businesses and churches, to share their resources (volunteers, parking lot as a staging area, etc.) in the case of a local emergency. Large power outages, train derailments, hurricanes and fires can happen in Germantown; your organization could make the difference in the services provided!

Germantown Oktoberfest 2009

Carrie Kim & Abby Majane staying cool in the shade.


Well, we didn't collect too much food at this year's Oktoberfest, but the first year is usually slow. We very much appreciate JK Moving and Storage bringing a truck, tables and chairs, so we had a free "home base" during the event. They dropped off our food, too! Great guys.

Thanks to Carrie Kim, Marissa Tukpah and Abby Majane, too, for keeping watch over our little area and being generally helpful to the fair-goers.