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Here it is the middle of June. Summer is knocking at our door. Hard to believe! Weather wise though, it depends on the day! We have had our share of both hot and cool days.
Thinking about summer makes me think of summer gardens and fresh produce. Many of you our Weymouth neighbors have beautiful gardens filled with flowers, shrubs and best of all fresh vegetables. We at the Food Pantry love to give fresh produce to our neighbors in need: tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, spinach. These are just a sampling of the things we have had donated in the past from our local gardeners?
If any of you, “Friends of the Weymouth Food Pantry” find you have an abundance of produce, bring it over. We would love to share it on your behalf with those we serve at the Pantry. And better yet, if you have the space, how about planting an extra row of tomatoes, cucumbers or whatever you love to grow.
This may sound a little corny (and yes, we would love to receive a donation of fresh corn) but “hunger does not take a summer vacation”. Director
NALC Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive
The 2010 National Association of Letter Carrier’s “Stamp Out Hunger” Food Drive on May 4th was another great success. This year, the generous Weymouth community donated more than 9,000 pounds of food to the Food Pantry by way of this drive. Our thanks go out to all of the Letter Carriers of Weymouth who made this possible and to all the people who made donations. We are also thankful to the Food Pantry volunteers who worked so hard on that rainy Saturday bringing the food into the Pantry and to members of the confirmation class of Immaculate Conception parish who worked so diligently sorting the food as it was received. We also had sorting and date-checking assistance from a small group of volunteers called “Spirit of State Street”, retired State Street employees who assist various non-profit organizations on an as needed basis. All those helping hands made the job so much easier. These donations will help us maintain our inventories, and have a wide variety of food available for our clients through the summer months when individual donations are typically smaller.
St. Albert’s = Great Food Drive.
Thanks to all the parishioners of St. Albert the Great parish who so generously donated over 52 Banana Boxes of food and personal items as a result of their recent food drive. This is an even more significant donation as St Albert’s regularly collects food for the Pantry on a weekly basis.
Taste-of-Weymouth Benefits Food Pantry
The East Weymouth Neighborhood Association sponsored its second annual Taste-of-Weymouth evening on April 29th at the Weymouth High School Gold Cafeteria. This well attended event showcased many Weymouth restaurants that encouraged attendees to patronize them by offering delicious sample-sized portions of their signature dishes. In addition, several local merchants raffled off products or gift certificates with the proceeds also going to the Food Pantry. The evening resulted in a $4,000 donation as well as several cartons of food for the Weymouth Food Pantry.
Weymouth Rotary Club Has Renewed Its $5,000 Grant for the second year. This will provide our clients fresh fruit for approximately seven months. Rob Lynch, Rotary President (left) and Bob Pineau, Rotary President Elect (right) presented the check to Gael Sullivan and Pat Adams.
Nancy Marrapese-Burrell makes her goal: As mentioned in an earlier newsletter, Nancy had a goal of raising $5,000 for the Weymouth Food Pantry over a period of several months. Well, we are happy to say, she made it!
With the help of a lot of people at meat raffles, a karaoke contest and other raffles, Nancy, aided by her friend, Charlie Clancy raised an astounding $10,000 divided between the Food Pantry and CarePacks, Inc., a South Weymouth volunteer organization that sends “Care Packages” to US forces. In a brief ceremony at the Pantry, Charlie Clancy was presented Food Pantry T shirts as our recognition of this successful fund raising effort.
Adopt-A-Month
Almost every school in Weymouth (both public and private) adopted a month to collect food for the Pantry this past school year. A typical donation from a school varied from about 500 pounds to 1500 pounds depending on the individual school enrolment. In addition to the Adopt-A-Month program Weymouth High School conducted food drives at Halloween and Christmas, and was very, very generous with its donations. Both St. Francis and St. Jerome's Schools conducted continual year-round collections for the Food Pantry.
Part-time Volunteers On the last Thursday of the month for the past several months, we’ve had the pleasure of having two additional volunteers at the Food Pantry. Tresa VanHeusen, from upstate New York, and Therese Touma, from Sydney, Australia, are postulants entering religious life with the Maronite Servants of Christ the Light, and are currently living at the Immaculate Conception parish convent. They wanted to help with the needs of their adopted community, and, as their schedules would allow, chose to help out at the Pantry on the last Thursday of each month.
Harvey Welch is our “Go-To” guy when it comes to inventories. Harvey keeps a continuous close watch on our various commodities to assure we always have appropriate stock levels. This enables us to place orders for those items where donations have not met demand to ensure we can consistently provide the nutritious food we strive to provide our clients. Beyond the inventory responsibilities, no job is too much for Harvey. Practically single-handedly, he made custom sized pallets to keep our inventories off the floors as required by health regulations. He’s always restocking the Pantry shelves when they need it, and when he runs out of urgent tasks, you’ll see him pick up a broom and sweep. And he does all this with a great positive attitude that nothing is too much work, and anything that other volunteers do is worthy of his thanks. Well, Thanks to you Harvey. What would we do without you?
“Hints from Harvey”
for the Best Foods to Donate:
Here are a few suggestions from Harvey Welch, our volunteer who watches over the Food Pantry’s shelves to keep them stocked. Donations of food will complement our inventory and keep our shelves stocked for the coming months:
- Proteins (Tuna, chicken, fish etc., Peanut Butter)
- Soups & Stews
- Rice & Pasta
- Cereal including Oatmeal
- Canned Vegetables
- Canned or Dried Beans
- Canned Fruits
- Jelly, Cookies, Crackers & Snacks
- Boxed Mixes
- Prepared Box Mixes (such as Mac ‘n Cheese or Hamburger Helper)
For additional suggestions and more detail, check out the Donation Suggestions page on our website.
Weymouth Food Pantry
1189 Commercial Street
Weymouth, MA 02189
Our third issue of 
Here it is the middle of June. Summer is knocking at our door. Hard to believe! Weather wise though, it depends on the day! We have had our share of both hot and cool days.
As mentioned in an earlier newsletter, Nancy had a goal of raising $5,000 for the Weymouth Food Pantry over a period of several months. Well, we are happy to say, she made it!
Part-time Volunteers On the last Thursday of the month for the past several months, we’ve had the pleasure of having two additional volunteers at the Food Pantry. Tresa VanHeusen, from upstate New York, and Therese Touma, from Sydney, Australia, are postulants entering religious life with the Maronite Servants of Christ the Light, and are currently living at the Immaculate Conception parish convent. They wanted to help with the needs of their adopted community, and, as their schedules would allow, chose to help out at the Pantry on the last Thursday of each month. 
