The Board of Directors of MCCM is pleased to welcome three new board members: Sherry Barnett, Judy Blevins, and Bruce Johnson.
Each of these new board members works as a volunteer for the Food Bank and/or Good Neighbors Programs so they are familiar with the operation of these programs. In addition, each bring years of experience in a variety of business endeavors. In a future edition of this newsletter we hope to highlight each member.
Welcome Sherry, Judy and Bruce!
The porch at our back door was beginning to deteriorate and was rapidly becoming unsafe. Volunteer Bruce Johnson proactively decided to remedy the problem. Enlisting the help of Lawrence Reams, Raymond Biscker, and James Coffelt, they removed the old porch and discovered some foundational and siding dry-rot, which they replaced.
The new porch has a roof to protect from the weather volunteers loading deliveries into the building.
Many thanks to Bruce and his crew for seeing a problem and taking the steps to correct it.
On Tuesday, October 17, 2017, David Hall, on behalf of the Marion County Cruisers car club, presented a check for $1500 to George Jackson, Treasurer of the Marion County Community Ministries Food Bank. The club has an annual Labor Day Cruise-In, the proceeds from which are used to support their community.
If you do your Christmas shopping at Amazon, they will make, at no cost to you, a donation to MCCM. Login to your Amazon account via this link:
http://smile.amazon.com/ch/62-1757532
instead of http://amazon.com.
Or just click on the image to the above.
In last month’s Newsletter we reported the following:
Har Zion Temple in Philadelphia has paid another visit to Whitwell Middle School.
On this trip to Whitwell from Philadelphia the wonderful folks took the Middle Schoolers shopping at Sav-A-Lot to buy food for the foodbank.
We hoped to have many details but all we have learned that the good folks of Har Zion Temple went shopping with the students at WMS and bought 800 pounds of food for the Food Bank.
More than 22 million children receive free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program during the school year, but when school is out, fewer than 4 million receive meals through the USDA Summer Food Service Program. This means millions of kids do not get the food they need during the summer months. Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children’s Defense Fund, writes that states and localities can and must do far more to stop summer hunger. Read the Article »
There is much discussion about the administration’s proposed cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Late last year, the University of Maryland’s Program on Public Consultation conducted a nationwide survey measuring support for increasing SNAP benefits. About 81 percent supported raising SNAP benefits for the average recipient, while 11 percent favored lowering benefits and 8 percent wanted to keep them the same. Read the Article »
1http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/news-and-updates/hunger-blog/hunger-in-the-news-060217.html
2016 was a busy year for MCCM. As you can see from the Figure 1, we distributed 9,508 boxes of food to 6,711 families. We have 1,295 active families who needed food assistance during 2016, so obviously some families needed assistance more than once. Figure 2 shows the actual visit distribution. The total number of visits was 1,290 which means that 5 families are on the way to independence and will soon become “inactive” and 626 families needed assistance 3 or fewer times. That’s good news!
The Good Neighbors Program paid grants totaling $21,669 to various utility companies on behalf of 308 families. As you can see from the Figure 3 the Good Neighbors Program had to close during the summer months in order to conserve resources for the winter months.
Hunger hurts everyone, but it is especially devastating in childhood because hunger deprives kids of more than just food.
On empty stomachs, kids don’t have the energy to focus, engage, learn and grow. Yet, this is the reality for 1 in 6 children in the U.S. who worry about when they’ll have their next meal.
A food-insecure family of four is estimated to need the equivalent of nearly 100 additional meals a month because they lack enough money to buy food.
84% of households with at least one child served by the Feeding America network report purchasing the cheapest food available, even if it wasn’t the healthiest option to provide enough food for the household.
20% of food-insecure children live in households that earn too much to qualify for most federal nutrition assistance—these families rely on charitable organizations like Feeding America to make ends meet.
The Food Bank and Good Neighbors Programs will be closed on Christmas Eve, December 24 and New Years Eve.