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Belchertown CAN! Kicks off 3rd Annual Food Drive
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Sunday,
December 5, 2010
Dear Showcase Belchertown vendors,
I am writing to request your assistance with the 2011 Belchertown CAN! Food Drive. At last year's "Community Give-in," we collected an even bigger mountain of food than in 2009: four tons of nonperishables that we distributed to five local food pantries. This year, the economy is not a whole lot better, and people are still out of work, so the need remains grave. We want to expand our efforts even further, but to do that, we need a lot of warm bodies, and we hope you'll consider volunteering.
There are two ways you can be a part of this exciting and gratifying project.
1. Volunteer a little time. The drive this year will take place on Sunday, Jan. 23, and Saturday, Jan. 29. We usually have a team to help organize the donations at Town Hall, but we also need people with trucks or large vehicles to pick up donated food and take it to Town Hall. In addition, we really need volunteers to take shifts at the major collection sites (Stop & Shop, Checkers) and at the Transfer Station (handing out flyers and collecting cash). It gets cold out there in January, and we'd like to be able to change volunteers every hour or so. Even one hour of your time would be appreciated. If you can help out, or if you have friends or family (including kids) who can help, please respond to this message. We'll be sending out a shift schedule for volunteers to sign up.
2. Host a CAN! can at your place of business. Last year we placed food-collection bins at a number of businesses around town, but the quantity of food collected really didn't justify the effort. People who walk into, say, a computer store or pet-grooming facility usually don't think about carrying food with them. So this year we're shifting our focus to cash donations. Why collect money during a food drive? We have learned that a food bank can purchase $9 worth of bulk foods with $1 in cash. So we have decided to place empty paint cans at local businesses along with placards explaining how customers' cash donations will purchase significant quantities of food. If you have a business with considerable foot traffic, could you put out one of our cans? Please respond ASAP so that we know how many cans we need to get.
If you would like to attend a planning meeting, our next one is Sunday, Dec. 12, at 7 p.m. in the Board of Selectmen's Room at Town Hall (righthand door in the back facing the parking lot). If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
Thank you in advance, and we wish you a great holiday season.
Best wishes,
Iris Broudy
Belchertown CAN!
EMAIL: ibroudy@charter.net
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