Recent Events
December 17th - Cub Scout Pack 3 Conducts Very Successful Food Drive For MEND network pantry
Pack 3 Scouts collected more than 148 bags of food for families and individuals in need who are served by St Joseph Catholic Church Food Pantry in Maplewood. The Scouts, from Prospect Presbyterian Church, not only collected the many bags of food but, also delivered the donated food to St Joe's Pantry on Saturday, December 17th and sorted and restocked the pantry's almost empty shelves. Thanks to Chris Johnson, Scoutmaster, and the entire Pack 3 Scouts, many families and individuals will be fed in January. These Scouts exemplify their promise "to help other people".
St Joseph Pantry Almost Empty Shelves Many Donated Bags of Food by Scouts
Volunteers Help Sort Donated Food Cub Scout Pack 3 Restock St Joseph Pantry
November 19th - MEND Thanksgiving Food and Winter Coat Drive - Prospect Presbyterian Church
Thanks to Everyone Who Helped - Volunteers From Prospect and from the greater Maplewood - South Orange community helped gather donations for this year's Drive. In addition, we received help from local merchants Andrew Quick Physical Therapy, Geralyn's Art Studio, Gleason's Cleaners, It's Sew Crafty, RocketShip & Print and South Mountain Yoga. Additionally, we had great help from the students, parents and teachers from Prospect's Co-op Nursery,and the students of Camp Seasons. Here are our volunteers in action.
Volunteers Dylan Lehrer, Daniel August Voorhees helped load the
Lehrer and Rex Freedman were truck.
big helpers.
Susan Pulliam and Jeff Smith help with
loading of the truck.
ACTION AGAINST HUNGER
Emergency food demand is up. Supplies are down.
The 20th annual Action Against Hunger™ Food Drive was held Sunday, October 2, 2011, under the sponsorship of North Jersey Media Foundation. The impressive one day drive collected several tons of food and many tax deductible contributions at more than 100 locations across northern New Jersey.
MEND coordinated the volunteer effort at the 13 Essex County locations, which included the following supermarkets to which we owe a debt of gratitude: A&P (Bloomfield and Montclair), Foodtown (Cedar Grove), Kings (Livingston, Maplewood, Montclair, Short Hills, and Verona), PathMark (Bellville and South Orange), ShopRite (Nutley and West Orange) and Stop & Shop (Bloomfield). Sincere thanks are also due to the 94 volunteers from MEND pantries and sponsoring houses of worship who graciously contributed their time to this effort which yielded nearly 7,000 pounds of food and $1,875 in tax deductible contributions. Action Against HungerTM is now the largest food drive in the metropolitan area, serving 65 pantries. One hundred per cent of the donations go to those in need, thanks to the voluntary efforts of MEND and other pantries volunteers.
Even though contributors were most generous, demand for emergency food is growing faster than supplies. Sharon Reilly- Tobin, coordinator of MEND, notes that, “In 2010, MEND served more than 75,000 people. What is most troubling is that 46% of these individuals were children. Like others, we are struggling to keep pace with demand. In order to stay open, MEND pantries have had to ration what they provide in food packages, and in some
instances, reduce their hours of operation. Houses of worship that
traditionally were donors are now opening food pantries because congregation families that were once donors have been laid off or are facing foreclosure and are struggling to put food on the table. We desperately need donations from other sources like this [Action Against Hunger™]
food drive.”
MEND greatly appreciates the work of the North Jersey Media Group Foundation in this effort.
2011
On Friday, May 6th MEND and Catholic Charities Emergency Food and Nutrition Network had its annual Walk-a-thon to help celebrate the efforts of our pantries and raise awareness of the need to feed hungry children during the critical Summer months when school breakfast and lunch programs are not available
We all met at Washington Park, in Newark, at 12:00 noon. After a brief rally, we all walked south down Broad Street to the Federal Building at 50 Walnut Street. We tehn returned on to Washington Park.
Together we can make a difference.
Sponsored by Catholic Charities Emergency Food and Nutrition Network and Meeting Emergency Needs with Dignity (MEND), 37 Evergreen Place, East Orange, NJ 0701
February 2011
In early February Prospect Presbyterian Church's senior high students raised over $400.00 for MEND's pantries through their Souper Bowl Of Caring Fund Drive to tackle hunger. Here one of Prospect's Senior High Leaders, Linne Thomson presents a check to MEND's Sharon Tobin.
Last year alone over 75,000 people facing difficult times were provided with emergency food, hope and support services by our 16 member MEND-IEFN pantry network. Thank you to everyone for your help and continued support.
