Dear friend,
It’s summer, but fall is quickly approaching. The new school year will start, football season is on the way and everyone is full of excitement!
But families struggling to get by can’t enjoy the changes this new season brings. They are working to put food on the table and worrying that there won’t be enough to eat. Nobody should have to worry about having enough food on the table at this time of year or any other. And with the new school year about to start, it’s especially important that kids get the nutrition they need to learn, focus and grow.
Thanks to you and your tremendous support, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank can help provide the nutritious meals neighbors need to thrive. I hope you enjoy this edition of News From the Heart and are reminded of the vital difference your support means to families in our community.
Then, I hope you’ll consider giving to help even more neighbors in need. When every $1 can help provide 3 meals, you can change countless lives this summer and provide a strong start to the school year. Thank you!
Gratefully,
Lisa A. Scales
President and CEO
I Just Want To Say Thank You
Everywhere you look at the Youth Cafe Market in Johnstown, you see smiles! This pop-up farmers market allows around 125 kids to shop for fresh produce using earned “cafe bucks.”
“It’s like shopping. I got three apples, three oranges, a whole handful of carrots,” one little girl beams.
For these children living in an area of high need, getting to pick out their own fruits and vegetables is an empowering experience. As one child says, “It’s cool because we get to help our family out by taking food home.”
The Youth Cafe Market is truly making a difference for kids and families facing food insecurity in Johnstown. By partnering with local farmers, the program provides nutritious options while supporting the community. A grateful child sums it up: “I just want to say thank you to the Food Bank for giving us this food.”
Your generous support allows the Food Bank to create innovative programs like the Youth Cafe Market that get healthy foods into the hands of our neighbors who need them most.
Thank you for your compassion in lifting up children and families in need across our 11-county area!
From Needing Help to Giving Hope
Olafemi — or Chef Ola, as she’s lovingly known — knows how difficult it is not to know where your next meal is coming from.
Chef Ola works as a caterer, doing a job she loves. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020 and everything shut down, she had to put her business on hold.
“It was very, very unsettling,” Chef Ola recalls. She suddenly had no income and limited access to nutritious food. Thankfully, she was able to turn to the Food Bank to get help when she needed it the most.
And she is so grateful that generous neighbors like you made her visit possible. “To be able to at least go to bed with food, and to wake up and to know that you may have food … that’s encouraging. So the Food Bank plays a really important part. It’s keeping people’s morale up. Their physical and their mental well-being,” she says.
Since the end of the pandemic, Chef Ola’s catering business has recovered, and she no longer has to rely on the Food Bank. To show her gratitude, she decided to give back by creating an educational garden where people can learn how to grow and cook their own food. Chef Ola is paying it forward by giving hope to friends and neighbors right in her own community.
None of what we do would be possible without neighbors like Chef Ola — and you! Your gifts give neighbors a hand up, and we’re so grateful.
It’s a Wonderful Thing
Patti understandably has a special passion for volunteering for the Cambria County Backpack Project — she taught in the area for 35 years! And as a teacher, she witnessed firsthand the struggles many students face with food insecurity.
“I could see just from teaching that long, what a need our community had,” she explains. Patti learned to recognize the telltale signs — students coming to school without lunch or a snack. She and her fellow teachers constantly worried about their students getting enough to eat … sometimes even giving them food so they didn’t have to be hungry that day.
Now retired, Patti finds the best way to help is by volunteering with the Cambria County Backpack Project. A partner of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, the program provides bags of healthy weekend meals and produce to students. “And the kids don’t have a stigma attached to it because they can quietly get their bag and just put it in their backpack,” Patti says. “It’s a wonderful thing.”
Thanks to dedicated volunteers like Patti — and supporters like you — the program recently expanded to an additional site, allowing it to serve 200 more students weekly. The growth has been especially impactful in reaching rural districts where transportation can be a barrier.
Patti’s decades of caring for students, combined with her determined volunteering, show how one person can make a meaningful difference in their community. We’re so grateful for all of our volunteers!
When you volunteer with us, you make such a difference for families and children in our area! For more information on volunteering, visit pittsburghfoodbank.org/volunteer.
A Huge Help
If you ever worked or lived in a high-rise building, you may have seen Vincent before … outside your window! A Pittsburgh native, Vincent worked as a high-rise window cleaner for decades until knee and back problems forced him into retirement.
These days, he gets by on a tight budget. “By the time I pay my rent and my utilities and everything else I got to pay, my money’s gone,” he tells us. His food stamp benefits were recently cut from $291 a month to $71 a month, so it can be a struggle for him to get enough to eat.
“The prices keep going up, but they’re giving less and less. They expect people to survive. This Food Bank is a huge help. It really is,” Vincent says. For neighbors facing tough circumstances, having access to fresh, nutritious food makes an enormous difference.
Your generous donations allow the Food Bank to be there for our community members like Vincent who are having trouble making ends meet. Every gift has a direct impact, providing healthy meals and essential groceries when times are hard.
Thank you for helping neighbors like Vincent during tough times!