Thank-you to those who contributed to food drive
This letter of thanks goes out to all the generous people who contributed money and/or non-perishable food to the 15th annual Shepherd’s Pantry holiday fundraiser. With a monthly expenditure of around $6,000.00 used to purchase food that is either running low or out of completely, monetary donations are necessary to keep the pantry running smoothly. Blanche Pepin, the pantry’s administrator, and all of the hard working and dedicated volunteers, handed out thousands of food items to over 6,000 families during this past year. Broken down, that’s over 16,000 individuals helped; with 33% of this total going to children and an average of over 95 families that come looking for help each Saturday between the hours of 9 and 11 AM.
A BIG thank you for this year’s success goes to the much needed and appreciated newspaper articles from The Standard-Times, The Fairhaven/ Acushnet Advocate and the Fairhaven Neighborhood News. Also, a BIG thank you to some of the area’s businesses, churches, schools and non-profit groups and organizations that have donated their time and money towards our yearly venture. I’d also like to acknowledge the donors who have visited our web site: shepherdspantry.org and felt inspired to help our cause.
Another big contributor this year was both The Greater New Bedford Track Club and Union Running from Fairhaven for their hard work of promoting and running our annual Turkey Trot road race. This annual Thanksgiving morning event brought in over 600 registered runners. After expenses, over $14,000 and over 3,000 lbs. of food were donated to help out the Shepherd’s Pantry.
Another notable contributor was Fairhaven Stop & Shop Manager, Kim Cordeiro, and Asst. Manager Tom Rodrigues who made sure that the pantry received over 250, $10.00 boxes of donated non-perishable food that was purchased by their generous customers. Also, a big thank you to the friendly bakery workers, at this same store, who hand me outdated bread and pastries each Friday to be given out the next morning to the needy who frequent the pantry.
And finally, the food bin located at the Millicent Library, and Stop & Shop Supermarket, both located in Fairhaven, where generous people have dropped off thousands of pounds of non-perishable food this past year, will continue. If you have any questions about the pantry located at the Long Plain United Methodist Church at 1215 Main St. in Acushnet, please call 508-763-9289.
Gerry Payette, Holiday fund raiser coordinator and Executive Director
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