It is one of those weird time warps where it seems like Harvey was forever ago, or it could have been just yesterday. For many people, especially those who did not sustain damage from Harvey, it is long gone out of our minds. We don't see it on TV anymore, and if we do, we are weary of seeing it, and have become numb to the devastation that is still out there.
We chose to continue our Harvey relief efforts into the new year. We are reaching out in two main directions. The first is continuing our relationship with the Needham Road community. We are going there each week with dinner and a small food pantry. Twice a month we are coming in with a larger more complete food pantry, thanks to our partnership with The Montgomery County Food Bank. The other direction we are reaching out is partnering with Battle Cry Ministries in Magnolia, Texas. This church has committed to helping those who experienced damage during the storm. They built bunkhouses on their property and a shower house. They are hosting volunteer groups from all over the country who are coming in to help. Until their kitchen is up and running, we are helping to provide evening meals as well as lunch fixings and snacks. One of the most important lessons that we learned from our first foray into Disaster Relief was that partnering is one of the best things that we can do. When we work with others, we are able to accomplish so much more. Thank you for your continued support of all of our work in the community! Together we can transform it into a even better place!
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It's been hard to explain all that we have done and learned in the first 11 months of our operations. We want to try and quantify all the good work that our sponsors and volunteers have accomplished. Here is a list of numbers:
17,475 Meals served (our goal was 3,000) 5,415 Volunteer hours (our goal was 1,000) 60,100 Pounds of perishables shared (our goal was 10,000lbs) 108 Days the truck was on the road 5 Different storage spaces 124 Instagram posts 247 Instagram followers 486 Facebook page likes 202 Average of unique viewers on the website per week 469 Average of page views on the website per week 102 People who have signed up on our volunteer list 30,342 Dollars donated to help us continue Harvey relief 112,327 Dollars donated to help us continue our food pantries and community meals Obviously, this does not do justice to the work that was done this year. The stories are better.
There are lots of more stories that could be told. There are more stories to be written. Happy 2018! We are looking forward to what it brings us! |