Thursday, February 4, 2010
Reprinted from the The Valley Press - In the News
By Abigail Albair - Editor
Executive Director of Gifts of
Love Diana Goode knows that the
purpose of the organization is
twofold.
“We are absolutely about the
working poor, our clients, but
We’re also about educating our
kids on what’s going on in the
community,” she said.
To help further achieve these
goals, Gifts of Love applied in
March for two grants from the
Hartford Foundation for Public
Giving totaling nearly $200,000.
Goode found out on Christmas
Eve that they would receive them.
“It was the best Christmas present
I could have gotten,” she said.
The funds awarded to Gifts of
Love will be used to establish a
new Farmington River Valley
Hunger Collaborative and to fund
a new Kid to Kid Program which
will offer area kids the chance to
volunteer at Gifts of Love.
“This year we are facing an
enormous challenge. The importance of our programs has increased in the wake of the
country’s economic downturn,
with more families unable to afford the basics,” Goode said.
The Hunger Collaborative is a
partnership of the Avon, Canton,
Farmington and Simsbury food
pantries with Gifts of Love serving as the lead agency and fiscal
agent.
“The collaborative we particularly like. In Hartford there are 90
food pantries and here in the Valley we have only five, so we
started thinking that we need to
stick together and work together
as a team,” Goode said.
The partners in the collaborative will all purchase their needed
food at FoodShare, a regional
food bank that coordinates donations from food companies to provide food daily to thousands of
people at more than 400 non-profits in Greater Hartford.
Not only will this allow the
pantries to receive bulk rates and
reduce expenses, but also Goode
explained that the Gifts of Love
box truck will pick up the food
from FoodShare and distribute it
to the pantries as well as assisting
the pantries with storage.
Good said, “The food pantries
are open so few hours a week,
they need to always be fully
stocked, and this way we can help
them do that. We’re also going to
get more refrigerators and freezers.
The pantries give out meat
and fresh vegetables once a
month, and we can keep things
frozen and ready to go for them.”
