Another Great Monday

We are feeding 106 families. They range from families of one to 11 people. We depend on our suppliers to provide enough food to do this. This week, they came through in a big way. Our average box was worth about $75. With the addition on the Green Bus, we now have the ability to take pallets of food. This means we have more food available to us, and it is coming in handy.

We have a waiting list right now of 12 families. Hopefully we will be able to add some of these families to our delivery list soon.

We continue to explore the possibilities of moving to a bigger facility, closer to our clientele.

Peace,

K

New Face

Last week our van got a face lift. Our logo and info will be seed all over the West Island and beyond thanks to Adam Moss at CATSYS and Sticky Grafix. The sign you see here is on both side windows as well and on magnets that rest on my Cherokee. All designed to give us more visibility in the community we serve and to bring attention to the growing need for a the food bank in the West Island.

Other good news this week.... A transport company donated 4 pallets of breakfast cereal to us. We now have cereal for our 106 families for the next 6 weeks.

Things to keep in mind. Our poker tournament is coming up fast on September 20th at Bourbon Street West. You can sign up on our website.

More Board News

Our board continues to grow. Vince Mancini, a friend, football buddy and businessman has joiuned the On Rock board. Vince joins Ted Sparkes, Karl Frigan and Steve Watts in guiding On Rock into its next stage of development. I am excited for this next year.

Peace,

K

New Board Member

On Rock is in the process of rebuilding it's board. We are in a place where we need to move and grow. In order for this process to be successful we have had to re-evaluate our board and bring in some new passion. I am pleased to announce that Steve Watts has joined the On Rock board. Steve is a passionate advocate for the under-privileged in our community and is a "No task is too big" kind of person.

You can meet Steve at the On Rock Poker Tournament on September 20th at Bourbon Street West. See onrock.org for more details.

Peace,

K

Summer is over

The kids went back to school today. At least mine did. This means the summer is over, and yet it feels like it barely began. Soon we will be talking about Christmas, but not yet. With the beginning of school comes our school lunch program. We have already begun supplying one school and in the next few weeks, we will hear from the other schools in the community about their needs.

It is easy to fall into the numbers of it all, and forget that these lunches are going to kids in our community who otherwise would not have lunch. Studies show that kids who are hungry learn less and act up more in school. I know what I am like when I feel a little peckish. Many of these kids may eat once a day. It is a big task, but it is one that must be carried out. We are privileged to serve our community in this way. To serve kids in this way.

Peace,

K

Growing needs create a need to grow

It is hard to believe that we started out 5 years ago with 40 families. This week we delivered food to 106 families. The amazing thing is, that our food supplies have grown right along with the number of people. We always seem to have enough food to give good boxes to our recipients.

We are actually at the point where we need to grow. We need a bigger facility in order to keep up with the need in our community. I would love to move into the center of the community where most of our people live. To create a place where we can offer more resources to the people we serve.

We need cold storage and a walk in freezer. We need dedicated dry storage. We also need a dock-level truck. These have been wishes for the last few years. We are now at the place where they are needs.

All we need is $800,000.....

Peace,

K

The Big Haul

This week, once again our food distribution was over the top. We used "the Green Beast" to pick up our supplies this week from Moisson Montreal. It was a good thing we did. The back door of the bus has been modified and will take a pallet. Along with all of our regular food, we picked up a pallet of McCain Slowcooker Solutions, Chicken A la King. All our families of 4 or more received a box of 6 packages. This provides the whole family with a meal at least 6 nights this week. On average our boxes were worth about $100 this week. That is amazing. Thanks to our friend who has made "The Green Beast" available. It has already opened some new doors for us.

A Columbian lady came in Tuesday looking for assistance. Her husband was laid off last week and they have 3 kids under 6 years old. She was very shy and told us that they have never asked for assistance before. I assured her that she is not alone. In the past year we have had many people come to request help, who are embarassed about needing help.

Her friend is a Peruvian who was also in need. As we talked, we asked if she could help us with some of our spanish speaking families that we had trouble communicating with. This lady has agreed to be our liason with these families, which is a big deal to us. We also acquired a Haitian liason this week.

Not a bad week. The Green Beast, and 2 liasons, and great food supplies. God provides.

Peace,

K