October 2024

Dear Friends of the Food Bank,

After a short pause of about a month, we will start up our Monday vegetable distribution for the fall 2024 season on Monday, November 4th.  This is the first year we were able to continue vegetable distributions through the spring and summer months, due to the hard work of our volunteers.  We are looking forward to again engaging with our clients and the community on Mondays! Come visit and pick up your weekly fresh veggies.

 On Saturday, October 12th , at our monthly Supplemental Food Distribution, we handed out 122 food bags of perishable and non-perishable foods.  This was a record number of bags that had our volunteers scrambling as we initially planned to distribute 100.  They quickly put together 22 more bags and were able to get them to needy clients.  This was the first time we distributed ground beef donated by South32 and it was a big hit!  We will be including more beef in our bags in the coming months and also supplying our community partners. Emergency food bag requests held steady this past month.

If we continue to have requests for 120+ supplemental food bags each month, we will be asking the community for additional donations as this number represents at least a 20% increase in demand on our resources in just one month.  November is traditionally a month people make donations and we would appreciate your support by reminding your friends and neighbors that the food bank is struggling with greatly increased demand for our services.

Looking forward, November kicks off the fall holiday season and we will hold our monthly supplemental food bag distribution on Saturday, November 9th which will include food items for making a Thanksgiving family meal.

On Saturday November 23rd at 9:00am we will distribute our traditional frozen Thanksgiving turkey to our clients.  One turkey per family and sharing with one’s neighbor is encouraged!

Come Join us at the Patagonia Lumber Company for a night of Jazz Tunes and Tastings in support of the Food Bank.  Tickets and more information:  patagonialumberco.com

We greatly appreciate your support of the Food Bank and look forward to another winter of community, sharing responsibility for providing for our citizens in need during the holiday season and into the new year.

Jim