Stroudwater Pantry Status 1/06/16

Hi team – Yesterday your Stroudwater Food Pantry served 48 families, accounting for 139  people being fed.  We had 6 new families this week, bringing us to a total of 179 households that are registered with us.

Our Hannaford pickup consisted of 361lbs of food.  Volunteers included Karlene, Angie, Adam, Laura, Frank, Jean, Chad and myself.

• What’s Next -Our shift volunteers for Wednesday the 13^h will be Deb and Angie (1^st shift) and Adam and Laura (2^nd shift).
• We have entered into an agreement with Time Warner to post pictures, video, and corporate logo on our blogsite, and will be talking to them about their next food drive with us.
• At 179 families served, your Stroudwater Food Pantry is about to start the transition from a small, startup operation to a full-blown medium sized food pantry ministry. This Sunday Jan-10 we will kickoff a series of Strategic Planning meetings. Join us in the Annex at 11:15 for our first meeting.
• We were awarded a SECOND food pickup day at the Westbrook Hannaford. Beginning next week we pickup on both Wednesdays AND Fridays.  This helps us immensely in closing the food gap we’ve been experiencing with fresh fruits and vegetables lately.
• The second Hannaford pickup will afford us the opportunity to open the pantry an additional day of the week. We will discuss how this will work during our meeting this Sunday.
• Our new freezer, purchased with a cash grant organized through the Good Sheppard Food Bank, will be installed and operational by next Thursday the 14^th.
• Yesterday Tux Turkel, staff writer for the Press Herald, visited the pantry along with his photographer to interview both volunteers and a few clients regarding how our pantry works and its impact on hunger in our local community. His visit was part of a series he is doing on hunger in Maine, and the first installment of his series goes to print before the end of this month.

Thank you everyone who helped usher in our first pantry day of 2016!                        – Doug