Our Lenten Collection was an incredible success, with 38,585 cans collected amongst four high schools and five churches. This brings our totals to 245,999 cans and 12 tons of our Signature Items of fresh produce, milk and eggs, meat and poultry.
Many thanks to the high schools: Elizabeth Seton, Connelly School of the Holy Child, Academy of the Holy Cross, and St. Vincent Pallotti. And many thanks to the churches: Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament and St. Thomas Apostle in Washington, St. Peter’s Olney, St. Jerome’s Hyattsville, and St. Patrick’s Norbeck.
We are now working on the 3rd Annual Summer in the City campaign. Our Foundation sponsors the only major collection of food in Washington during the summer. Last year, we tripled our first year’s results and our goal is pretty mighty this year — we’d like to collect at least 75,000 cans this summer! We will be distributing bags to participating churches n the District and Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties and then we’ll pick up the proceeds beginning Memorial Day and continuing through mid-September. The need is pretty great during the summer. Our clients won’t be going to the shore this summer and the kids are not in school, and many programs shut down for parts of the summer. So, if you are able to make a small donation for the Signature Items, that would be appreciated. We’ll be making weekly trips to Southern Maryland for fresh corn on the cob and fresh produce, and continue with our other Signature Items.
Our client base has quadrupled since we started and we frankly did not anticipate this. Last month, for instance, we served 765 families amongst our three pantries. To be sure, we are keeping up, no one is ever turned away, and the bags are plentiful…it just presented a challenge!
Switching gears, we are delighted to announce that our Annual Gala Dinner and Silent Auction, A CAPITAL EVENING III, will be held on Friday, November 18, 2016 at The Capital Hilton in Washington. Our Chairs this year are Patrick Gex, Jodi Moraru and David Piscola. Last year’s Gala boasted a 45% increase over the first year, and our Chairs have set a goal of another 45% increase this year! They have promised the biggest and best Gala yet! Since it is our only fundraising event each year, we hope we can count on your support and participation! Reservations can be made on this site soon and formal invitations mailed in September.
We are delighted that GREYSTONE (greyco.com) has once again committed as our Diamond Sponsor and we welcome back our corporate sponsors: Capital Hilton, EPI Printing, EVOKE, and Caruso Florist. There are other sponsorship opportunities available, which we hope you will consider. Because of the commitment of these great companies, we are able to capture the lions share of the proceeds as profit to pay for our programs in the coming year.
Of course, we could not do any of this without you, so we thank you once again for helping us serve the working poor of our Nation’s Capital.
