Keyport Ministerium Food Pantry

Tell the people you care about how much they mean to you. These are the people that usually stand by you in good times and in bad times. A simple “Thank You” goes a long way and means more than anything else you could possibly say or do. Remember that when you care about someone or someone cares about you Valentine’s Day is every day of the year not just on February 14th.

On January 8th we officially started our 50/50 Raffle. This is the first time our organization has conducted a raffle and we are confident that it will be a success. We are in full force selling tickets so if you are interested in helping us by buying or selling some tickets please, contact our Registrar Maria Connors (732-888-1986) who is in charge of the tickets and she will be more than happy to assist you. Please spread the word.

If you look in our ‘How You Can Help’ and ‘Special Needs’ sections you will notice that it says volunteers are “needed for monthly USDA food receipt (lifting required)”. The reason we make mention of this is that we want to recognize the following volunteers (behind the scene so to speak) who are always there to help us unload these heavy boxes. It’s not an easy task – take it from someone who knows. We would like to publicly extend our gratitude to: Art Lynch and Bob Wolfenden for their assistance every month. Of course, we would be remiss if we did not mention our regular volunteers Ben Defibaugh and Al Scalzo who are at the pantry every week and also assist with the unloading of the food receipt. Thank you gentlemen! Remember readers - we are always looking for volunteers for our food receipt so if you are able to help us once a month for about an hour or two please contact me – we can surely use your help.

Now for our latest status:

We would like to thank the Keyport Stop & Shop supermarket for their recent donation toward our building fund.

We would like to thank the Middletown United Methodist Church for all the very generous donations that we receive from them throughout the year.

We would like to thank St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church for allowing us to use their hall for the distribution of coats.

We received approximately 100 coats from the One Warm Coat organization (www.onewarmcoat.org) to distribute to our clients (October 2006). The coats we received were in excellent condition some even that had never been worn. Thank you One Warm Coat and your donors for helping us provide our clients with some extra warmth for the upcoming months.

Thank you to the Keyport Police Dept. who continues with their food donations to our organization. By the way readers, whether you live in Keyport or another town, don’t forget to say thank you once in a while to these fine men and women for the great job they do in keeping our towns safe.

The Statewide Emergency Food and Anti-Hunger Network (SEFAN) requested that organizations make Valentine Hearts to thank Gov. Corzine for allocating $4 Million dollars in the budget to feed the hungry. We are happy to announce that we are participating and as of February 1st have collected 90 + names. The hearts will be presented to the Governor on February 14th. If you want to learn more about the SEFAN organization visit their website www.sefan.org.

Thank you to the Keyport Seniors for their food donations.

Advance notice to all our readers, we will be participating again this year in the Alan Shawn Feinstein Challenge to Fight Hunger. The challenge runs from March 1st to April 30th. Visit http://www.feinsteinfoundation.org/ for full details.

As always we cannot say thank you enough for all the support and assistance we receive from ALL our donors. Stay warm and see you next month.

Isaiah G. Cooper
Executive Director
Keyport Ministerium Food Pantry, Inc.

A Message from the Executive Director February 2007

A Message from the Executive Director
February 2007