Dear Friends:
We have found that unless and until children and families can deal with their most basic needs---food, shelter, clothing---they struggle to deal with the other issues in their lives. And, right now, more people than ever are struggling to feed themselves in the Tri-cities.
Almost half of the nearly 9,000 people who received food bank support last year, almost 50% are children under the age of 18. And the number of people we have been serving has increased by more than 50% in the last few years. These are, indeed, troubling numbers and are further evidence that the issue of child poverty is something that is very real in the Tri-cities.
Every year, we count on our fundraising and foodraising in December to help us get through until the spring. While we will not have final numbers for the amount of food and funds that we have raised until January, we know that our efforts have simply not been able to keep up with the demand that we have been seeing. Even though we reduced the size of our Christmas hampers this year, we are still far short of the food and funds we need to put food on the shelves of the Food Bank in January. As most of you know, our Food Banks do not receive government funding…we are able to deliver these services only through the generous donations we receive from the Tri-cities community and the thousands of hours of volunteer time we receive from hundreds of caring people.
We need to generate significantly more donations in the next few days. At this point, donations of funds are preferred to donations of food, as funds allow us to act quickly to make appropriate food purchases. I would appreciate it if you would consider a donation and forward this message to others who might also be willing to help the children and families we serve with our food bank. If you are able to make a donation, you can easily do so by connecting to the following link:
For those of you who have already made a donation, please forgive this appeal and accept our sincere thanks. If you could forward this message to others who might be able to help, we would sincerely appreciate it.
SHARE has a long history of finding a way to help when and where help is needed the most and this is certainly one of those times.
Thank you, everyone, for your consideration. I wish each of you the best in the year ahead. And, for those of you who are interested in discussing new approaches to tackle child poverty, please drop me a line so that we can include you on our mailing list.
Sincerely,
Martin Wyant
Chief Executive Officer
604 529 5126