Food Purchasing a Must!

The first month of 2008 has been a big month. We spent nearly $5000.00 buying staple foods (mac and cheese, green beans, corn, oatmeal, and pinto beans). We barely turned around and found the shelves were almost empty again! Good grief! Fortunately there had been several donations made over the holidays and just at the end of the year.... so off to the store we go again.... and another $5000.00 is spent. This week more green beans, more corn, more oatmeal and more mac and cheese were purchsed. With absolutely no canned meats on the storage shelves we were also able to purchase canned tuna.... a great source of protein! We were excited to be able to negotiate a good price. While we had been out of yet another major staple food (peanut butter)our shopper had been checking prices for that everywhere. Miraculously, while picking up some of the food this week a great deal was found and further negoitated and we were able to purchase some pb as well. WOW!!

With tomorrow being "Souper Bowl" Sunday we are hoping that local churches and groups will do their part donating soup. Our current supply of soup is nearly gone. As a general rule soup is the one thing we NEVER run out of.... but we are well on on way! No matter your preference for the winning team, be sure to take your soup to church or wherever you see a display!

Re-registering has gone so well over the last few weeks. Some families have added household members (some families have begun to move with other families to save money and others have decreased in size as older children, now adults have moved out and into places of their own). Our numbers of client families helped seems to continue to rise a little a at time. The colder weather and rain (yes, we are glad to have it!) have created stress for some families.

We continue to be blessed to be able to give bread to all families. They are so appreciative and love having the ability to make choices (we have a variety of bread choices).

We begin the year on a positive note. We hope that our community remains faithful in food and monetary donations as we seek to feed the hungry of Blount County.

We hope that you will be a part of that feeding.....