food ministries

Summary

Our Food Ministries continued to serve our community this year through our two programs, Food Pantry and Community Lunch. Our Food Pantry handed out an average of 150-175 bags of groceries on the first Saturday of every month while our Community Lunch served a hot, balanced lunch, restaurant–style, to an average of 150-175 people on every fourth Saturday of the month (3rd Saturday in November and December).

Our Food Pantry serves many young families and gets back wonderful volunteerism in return from some of the youth it serves. Our Community Lunch however, which is often laborious preparation work, was frequently short on volunteers in 2017, particularly in the summer months.

The Food Ministries/Hunger Team Task Force, which began in 2016 in transition, continued to meet about every two months to discuss the logistics of running the programs, fundraising and grant writing, building awareness within the congregation, and also to share helpful information and resources across the two ministries to strengthen the programs.

Financials

The dedicated food ministry account began 2017 with $27,206.63 and has a balance of $19,359.06 as of the end of November (we received credits of $9,657.39 through November 2017 and spent $17,504.96). We also received grants from United Way in the amount of $17,932 -- which went directly to the grocery service Driscoll from which we order -- and $4,189.69 from the City of New York’s Food Bank in the form of packaged goods which we have used to supplement across both ministries. The cost per month for the two programs averages about $3500 per month.

Plans/Goals for 2018

We plan to look for available grants to support the continued ministries and continue our relationship with existing grants, to expand the volunteer base of the programs with both members of Advent and community volunteers, and to evaluate and plan additional services that could be offered to improve the ministries.

Respectfully submitted by,

Abby Amanuel