259th Week Update - Miles Neighborhood One Can A Week Project

Hi Folks,

Now One Can A Week is at
Sprouts on Oracle

The table was set up at 2 pm on Wednesday and by 3 pm we had our first donation. A woman dropped $2.00 in the basket a few seconds after reading the large sign in front of the table.

Over the next four hours folks stopped by to chat and said they were excited to see food collections for the Community Food Bank in their Sprouts. One woman promised to bring donations from home. I told here to just put it in the bin on her next visit to the store. She replied, “Oh, no, I have too much for the bin.”

Too much is always good I told her. She can stack it all around the bin and the staff will gladly help her.

Where the table is currently located, customers have to buy the food and then walk back into the store to hand it to me. Even this little inconvenience didn’t dampen their desire to participate. We collected 26 lbs. which is really great for the first day. Richard Rodriguez, the new Oracle store manager said we will build the program just as we did at Speedway by making small changes over time to meet the needs of the customers.

What a great way for One Can A Week to greet the New Year.  

Dollar for Dollar Match...up to $110,000  

Four local families to match

online donations until December 31, 2013.

On Thursday Jack Parris, the Public Relations Manger at the Community Food Bank sent me an email.

"HI Peter:  I don’t want to infringe on “One Can a Week”, but would it be possible for you to mention the Holiday Challenge (release attached) in your blog for the next two weeks?  You don’t have to repeat the whole release, just the highlights.

"If this is not possible, I understand.

"Thank you for your consideration.

Jack"

Jack’s in PR and I understand he has to dance a bit with most folks, but when it comes to the Community Food Bank he can just tell us to do something and it will get done.

The four local families: The Jim Click Family Foundation, Jim and Sandy Peebles, Barry and Janet Lang and The Chen/Chow family suggest people donate online to the Community Food Bank and they will match those donations dollar for dollar up to $110,000. My first thought was how about checks and cash like I get? They have a phone number (520) 882-3296 if you don’t have access to the Internet so I called it.

Liz Westrick answered and she said checks and cash are good, too. You just have to call or go see Liz and those cash and check donations will become part of the challenge. So guess who I handed over our $71.00 to when I got to the Food Bank today? And guess who got $71.00 more dollars from those generous families?

Thanks, Jack, for getting One Can A Week into the challenge but you don’t have to be so nice next time. Just tell us what to do … you’re the Food Bank for heavens sakes. 

Lots More Food and a Blanket, Too
Dot Kret of DKA Associates called Sunday night to see if I could take more food to the food bank. Silly question?

She just had a party and asked everyone to bring some food. The party goers decided “some” was just not enough. They ended up with 46 lbs. (not including the blanket). Add that to the normal weekly DKA Associates donation and this week’s total reached 78 lbs., a record.

We collected a total of 214 lbs. of food. The money we donated amounted to $71.00, $55.00 in checks and $16.00 in cash.

See you Sunday,

Peter