Community With A Heart – Thanksgiving Food Drive provides food baskets for 130 families in the community
The DeAnza Lions want to thank Safeway, the community and all Monta Vista High School volunteers for making our 31st Annual Thanksgiving Food Drive a huge success. This year we provided Thanksgiving food boxes to 130 needy families in our community, including low income families with kids in Hughes Elementary school, the Sunnyvale Support Network for battered women and others.
2010 has been another tough year for many people in our community. With no real rebound in the overall economy, more people lost their source of income, increasing the number of those requiring food support, while donations were generally down. The DeAnza Lions Club, preparing for the 31st annual food drive, was facing a few additional obstacles: the Sunnyvale PakNSav store, venue for many food drives had been closed, and the new Safeway built there in lieu had not yet opened.
Still, the food drive was put on the agenda, as usual for the weekend before Thanksgiving (Nov 20th – 22nd) and things started to fall into place. The new Safeway Store opened – as scheduled – on Nov 11th, and gave permission for the food drive. Another Safeway (S. Bernardo) was added to the drive. Fellow lions, their spouses and/or friends, as well as LEOs, CSF and Octagon members from Monta Vista High School braved the cold and windy weather, handing out shopping lists to patrons, asking for contributions, however small, for our food baskets. Needless to say that more patrons did their shopping in the brief sunny intervals and thus also the donations of food and money were up during those periods.
On Sunday morning, the sorting of non-perishable food items proceeded in the Odd Fellows Hall on Homestead/Saratoga-Sunnyvale road – we are grateful for the free-of-charge use of this convenient venue for our food distribution.
On Monday morning, the food baskets were supplemented with the perishable goods, and distributed to low-income families and people in need whose names had been collected previously
In the face of tight economic times, we succeeded in filling 130 food baskets (2 boxes of food, together worth $ 75 each) – food items that will provide for a generous Thanksgiving dinner and quite a few meals beyond.
In addition, 46 turkeys and two pick-up trucks/beds full of foods were delivered to the Sunnyvale Community Services to supplement their food bank.
The DeAnza Lions Club gratefully acknowledges the donation of food and funds of approx. $ 12,000 during this food drive.
We also thank each and every volunteer, especially the members of the newly founded LEO club, and the owners of the Safeway Stores, for donating time and energy and money to this worthwhile cause. Happy faces and kind words of thanks met the Lions who delivered the gift baskets.
A big Thank You again to the patrons of the Safeway Stores for opening their heart and wallets to help people in need.
Happy Thanksgiving!