l-r: Melissa Mantz, Chris O'Connell and Nancy Szamborski
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The primary goal of the food drive is to keep local food pantries stocked during July and August, months when donations are lean, but need continues unabated. Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2012 with a “10 for 10” Community Service Campaign, Furia Rubel is hosting its own food drive in support of the Housing Group’s summer program and is distributing branded grocery bags to clients, colleagues, family and friends during April and May to collect non-perishable food items.
“While many of us look forward to our summer vacations, hunger, unfortunately, does not take a vacation,” said Furia Rubel founder and CEO Gina F. Rubel, Esq. “In an effort to stop hunger in our area, we are asking our friends to join us in supporting the Bucks County Housing Group’s summer food drive. Gifts of non-perishable items, monetary donations and gift cards to local Bucks County grocery stores will help keep the county’s food pantries stocked for those who might otherwise go hungry this summer.”
Some of the needed non-perishable items include canned fruit, chunky soups, healthy kids’ snacks, instant coffee, peanut butter, jelly, juice boxes, kids’ cereals, powdered milk, spaghetti sauce, sugar and tuna.
Organizations interested in supporting the “Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation” food drive may contact Furia Rubel at (215) 340-0480 or or BCHG at (215) 598-3566. The Housing Group is also gratefully accepting monetary donations and/or gift cards to Acme Markets, Bottom Dollar Food, Giant, Kmart, Landis Super Markets, Target, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, Wegmans or Whole Foods Market.
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In December BCHG recieved a grant from Foundations Community Partnership to underwrite the costs of a pavilion at our Robert Morris Apartment complex. Well the pavilion is almost complete and residents are pretty excited about this great addition to the property. ” We will use this pavilion to host our summer feeding program, for kids activities and for tenant gatherings.” said Dana Smith-Kurtbek, Community Builder at the site. “This is a wish come true for us and we are very grateful to FCP for making this happen.” A ribbon cutting ceremony will take place in May.
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BCHG is the recepient of a $15,000 grant from the Workforce Investment Board Bucks County Youth Council which will fund a week long career camp at Snipes Farm http://www.snipesfarm.com/. The grant is designed to give children the opportunity to learn about possible careers for the future. The camp Farm for Your Life Career Camp will include educational seminars as well as hands-on experiences for youth campers. Activities will include daily chores to feed animals, tend the children’s garden and create snacks with farm fresh ingredients. Daily career seminars will explore the hows and whysof farming and cover the many skill sets involved in farming. Seminar topics will include:
Education will be highlighted as in seminars and daily activities to facilitate learning every day in many
ways, with mention of the many programs that are available. SFEC uses solar energy in part to run the farm and will explore the work that it takes to install a system and how the sun’s energy is converted into electricity. SFEC plans to do a morning field trip to the Bard Holding lab that makes bio-fuelout of algae. Bard’s website is www.bardholding.com.
Seminars are designed to be hands-on and fun with games and singing woven throughout. The week will culminate in a farm market-for-a-day experience where everyone would help to harvest and prepare crops, set up a small farm stand with signs and pricing, prepare a couple of recipes for sampling and learn some basic facts about theveggies to share with visitors. A flyer for the event would be prepared by a camper marketing committee. Campers will go home with fresh produce every day, will take home recipes and information about local farms andfarm markets and a list of careers that we’ve included in the camp experience with websites and resources to reach for moreinformation.
Bucks County Housing Authority is a county agency tasked with oversight of the HUD Housing Voucher Program while Bucks County Housing Group is a private non-profit social service agency serving homeless and low income familes since 1979.
Nearly one in four U.S. households with children struggled to afford enough food for themselves and their families in 2010, according to a new report (pdf) released today by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). The analysis separately examines food hardship rates – the inability to afford enough food – for households with children and without children nationally and in every state, every Congressional District and 100 of the country’s largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). These numbers reflect what we are seeing in our three Community Food Pantries; we are grateful for your donations- you are keeping your neighbors fed!
Middletown Grange Fair coming up this week!
Bucks County 4-H shining for the Penndel Food Pantry with a food drive at the the fair- so if you are going to the Grange Fair check out this link to see how you can support the excellent 4-H program AND your neighbors in need!
A huge THANK YOU to United Way of Bucks County for organizing Operation Helping Hands once again! Thanks to all the donors and volunteers for making the day work so well!
A shout out to volunteers in Penndel who carried and sorted 7356 pounds of food!: Shelly Partlon, Joyce Liechliter, Joan Russel, Irene Bidmead Dean Wacker, Brian Butler, Patti Cullen, Leeanna Nassi, Bridget Eisenhauer, Eileen Conner, Jonathan Bar, Alexandria Frizell, Dana Evans, Wendy Pearman, Jason OstrowskiI, Donald Schultz, Peter Coughlin, Cheryl Sermarini, Kristin Ruiz, Sharon Herling, Veronica MaraviI and Cindy Shimp!
A HEARTFELT THANK YOU to all the schools and centers who participated in OHH. Your food donation will make a big difference for a family in need! Way to support your community!
Below are the schools which participated and the amount they donated!
Chandler Hall 2 locations 140
Child’s World 120
Crossing Co-op 80
CR HS- North 1440
CR HS- South 1225
God’s Window 138
Goodnoe Elem. 261
Hillcrest 315
Holland Middle 2001
KinderCare 47
Newtown Elem. 166
Wrightstown Elem. 62
Northampton Township Senior Ctr. 69
Newtown Middle School 61
Newtown Montessori 63
Bux-Mont Academy 142
Comprehensive Learning Ctr. 199
Kinder Care 48
St. Mary Hosp. Child Ctr. 75
Neshaminy Senior Ctr. 311
New Hope-Solebury High 140
New Hope Upper Elem. 4
School Lane Charter 186
Childtowne Montessori 104
Jolly Tots 105
A big thank you to United Way of Bucks County for organizing this county-wide food drive!
And a great big THANK YOU to Joe Olenick who made OHH happen in Milford Square! You are the man!
Thanks to all the schools and organziations who made donations!
Life Span – 77 lbs
Goddard School – 94 lbs
YMCA Day Care – 83 lbs
From L-R Volunteers Karen, Missy, Sue, Denise and Joe
Volunteers from Quakertown traveled down to Philly on March 5th to pick up 30 FIFTY pound bags of potatoes! Thats 1500 pounds of spuds!
They dropped off 10 bags of potatoes at the Quakertown Food Pantry and shared 2 bags with the Trumbauersville Church of the Brethern Food Pantry.
Then back to Milford Square where they re-bagged potatoes into smaller bags for use by our pantry patrons and residents at our Milford Square shelter.
Thanks friends for all your hard work and now…mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, potatoe pancakes….
The Penndel Community Food Pantry is the busiest of the three pantries…just how busy is it? Well…check out the numbers below and remember over 90% of the food these patrons receive comes from community donations!
| Food Pantry Summary 2010 | |||||
| Total | Total | ||||
| Month | Children | Adults | Elderly | Individuals | Families |
| Jan | 821 | 1096 | 139 | 2056 | 601 |
| Feb | 504 | 715 | 101 | 1320 | 413 |
| March | 797 | 1140 | 180 | 2117 | 624 |
| April | 831 | 1091 | 169 | 2091 | 623 |
| May | 733 | 1027 | 156 | 1916 | 557 |
| June | 762 | 1036 | 181 | 1979 | 568 |
| July | 776 | 1015 | 167 | 1958 | 557 |
| Aug | 766 | 986 | 182 | 1934 | 565 |
| Sept | 1006 | 1347 | 216 | 2569 | 741 |
| Oct | 791 | 1046 | 160 | 1997 | 569 |
| Nov | 937 | 1162 | 227 | 2326 | 627 |
| Dec | 980 | 1131 | 198 | 2309 | 640 |
| Total | 9,704 | 12,792 | 2,076 | 24,572 | 7,085 |
| thru 12/09 | 9624 | 11666 | 1831 | 23121 | 6602 |
| increase | 80 | 1,126 | 245 | 1,451 | 483 |
| %increase | 1% | 10% | 13% | 6% | 7% |
![images[7]](http://www.bchg.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/images7-150x64.jpg)
