Stittsville Food Bank |
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Chair’s Year End Report for 2009 |
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As were the past several years, 2009 was a year of increase. This is good news as well as bad. While there continued to be an increase in the number of clients using our services, this was matched by the generosity of this community in responding to our pleas for assistance by either providing goods or money. We continue to serve families on Monday evenings, except when Mondays are holidays. To avoid unnecessary disruption to our clients, when any holidays occur on a Monday, we switch our service to Tuesday Nights. Through a special arrangement with the staff at the Frederick Banting Alternate School, we also assist some of their students. And, of course, we continue to offer our Special Programs at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2009 we served an average of 53 families a month, up from 46 in 2008, with an increase in clients aged 19 and older. The number of children under 4 years was marginally higher, while the 4-18 age group was almost the same as in 2008. The Special Programs we offer are extremely popular with our clients as reflected by the statistics. For both Easter & Thanksgiving we offer grocery store vouchers and cheese. This past Easter there were 55 families who registered, an increase from 36 families in 2008. At Thanksgiving, the number of families grew from 49 in 2008 to 55 this year. The Christmas Hamper Program offers grocery store vouchers as well as a very complete hamper of food items including the client’s choice of a turkey or ham and gifts for all children 16 and younger. This program requires a special team to organize, purchase, sort, and pack the hampers. The Christmas coordinator works closely with the Client Services Director and the “gift angels” to ensure all requests are met. Our food inventory continues to be well monitored and managed. Due to the on-going generosity of this community, cash donations have allowed us to purchase perishable items on a regular basis, to enhance nutrition and provide variety. These donations have also allowed us to be less dependent on receiving assistance from the Ottawa Food Bank. We continue to collect donations from food bins at Brown’s Independent Grocers, Giant Tiger, outside our municipal councillor’s office in the Goulbourn Recreation Centre, and Holy Spirit Catholic Church. A dedicated group of people regularly pick up, sort and shelve this material on a weekly basis. As well, there are organizations that “sponsor” specific food item shelves and deliver them to us on a monthly basis. Our Food Drive team has worked hard to ensure food drives from our generous donors are spread throughout the year. This means there are no longer periods of time when some of our shelves are bare. This team also sort and store these many items, check best-before dates, and make sure the shelves are not overloaded or under stocked. We are also indebted to the two community newspapers that willingly promote and advise the community about our needs and any upcoming food drives. Again this year, record cash donations were received. As a result our financial status is excellent – again thanks to the generosity of so many businesses, organizations, service clubs and individuals. Finally, I want to thank the more than 60 volunteers who are the backbone of this organization – many of whom I only know by name. They do the ugly jobs, the hard work, and they do it well and with no fanfare or recognition. Just self satisfaction. Thank you. Robin Derrick May 25, 2010 |
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