Clarksburg High School Honors Spanish Club

What nice kids! And they are lucky to have Marisol Maldonado as their teacher, too...

The Food Comes Pouring In...

THANK YOU to Novovax, Neelsville Presbyterian Church, Kids Town, DRT, Clarksburg High School Honors Spanish Club, and the Boy Scouts of Matsunaga Elementary School! We have LOTS of food (although still low on peanut butter and cereal, it's always something!).

Here are some pictures from the Boy Scouts, Scouting for Food on November 14!

810 Families for Thanksgiving

We had 810 households for Thanksgiving in the Holiday Giving Project this year! A lot of people called in to say their caseworker hadn't gotten them into the database before the cutoff, so I know the number will be much higher for December. Thanks very, very much to the school guidance counselors and caseworkers who helped with the distribution of over $16,000 worth of Giant cards! We couldn't have done it without your help! Also, thanks for the help of many volunteers and friends, who turned up the days before Thanksgiving to deliver gift cards and food. In the four days before Thanksgiving, we delivered 30 boxes of food and over 70 envelopes of gift cards! Wow!

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.

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!

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!!