Food Drive Volunteers Being Enticed

By Business Of The Year

By John Voket

Newtown Social Services is partnering with Newtown’s Business of the Year to create a sweet smelling opportunity for dads and kids to volunteer, while earning their moms a unique gift on Mother’s Day weekend.

Knowing that it might be challenging to attract volunteers on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, “with everyone out shopping for their mom,” Social Services Case Manager Joanne Klopfenstein wanted to find a creative way to entice folks to help sort or deliver donations during the local Postal Carriers Annual Food Drive.

So she connected with Judy Volpe, owner of Avancé Esthétiques and recent recipient of the local Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year honors, to lend a special hand.

“We would really love to see fathers and their children volunteering together,” Ms Klopfenstein said. “I think it would make every mom feel so proud knowing that her husband and kids were out helping the hungry right here in Newtown on Mother’s Day weekend. But we wanted to make sure their moms all got something special besides a few hours off on Saturday the 13th.”

After discussing the options, Ms Volpe decided she would issue special Mother’s Day gift vouchers to Newtown Social Services to distribute to every father who volunteers with one or more of his children for at least two hours during the food drive. Each qualified volunteer father and child team will be able to give Mom the voucher, and she can redeem it within two weeks for a scented Botanicus Aromatherapy candle.

“I know from working with a lot of local organizations in the area that the issue of hunger isn’t ever far away, even here in Newtown,” Ms Volpe said. “I only hope that we will be able to inspire some fathers and their children to come out and volunteer for this important cause for a couple of hours.”

To qualify for the Avancé Esthétiques Mother’s Day gift voucher, a father accompanied by at least one child is required to volunteer for at least two hours. Fathers with children age 11 or younger are requested to provide pickup and delivery services only between the hours of 9:30 am and noon.

“Those volunteers will come to Social Services and get a route map,” Ms Klopfenstein said. “Then they’ll follow the route picking up bags of food residents leave out by their mailboxes.”

Ms Klopfenstein explained that due to the limited number of postal carriers working the extensive amount of routes in town, there are not enough carriers to do all the pickups so they need some “helpers,” willing to lend a hand and a vehicle for a few hours in the morning.

Then any father  willing to volunteer with a child or children age 12 or older can go to the Social Services office, located behind and below the police headquarters at Town Hall South, and help receive the drop-off donations and sort the food items for distribution to local residents in need.

“We need these dads and older kids from 10:30 am to 6 pm, especially later in the day when we have the heaviest bulk of sorting to do,” she said.

Residents are reminded that all food collected in Newtown stays in Newtown and is distributed to qualified residents through the Social Services Food Pantry. Summertime is an especially important time for food donations as many children who are on subsidized school meal programs are on vacation and may go without the proper nutrition provided through the school district.

“If folks are willing to donate by putting a sturdy bag or box out by their mailbox the morning of May 13, we are in need of some particular items,” Ms Klopfenstein said.

Social Services is especially needing cereal, snack foods like Jell-O, pudding, or single-serving fruit cups, any type of nonrefrigerated juices, instant coffee, personal products like shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brushes, deodorant and diapers, as well as paper products.

Residents should avoid donating expired food items, canned beans, and canned pumpkin filling, she said.

On the second Saturday in May — May 13 — letter carriers and appointed volunteers in more than 10,000 cities and towns across America will deliver much more than mail when they walk and drive along postal routes. They also will collect as much of the goodness and compassion their postal customers are willing to display by participating in the 14th Annual NALC National Food Drive, the largest one-day food drive in the nation.

Letter carriers and volunteers will collect nonperishable food donations left by mailboxes and in post offices and deliver them to local community food banks, pantries, and shelters. Nearly 1,500 local NALC branches in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands are involved in the drive.

For more info, or to sign up for the Newtown food drive to fill the Social Services Food Pantry, call Ms Klopfenstein at 270-4330 weekdays, or send email to NewtownSocServ@snet.net.