Give Back For The Holidays…It’s The Brooklyn Way!
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“We’re hoping to make this Christmas the best one ever for families and children in Brooklyn…”, say the staff of St. John’s Bread and Life. OurBKSocial’s Chief Editor and Founder, Ayanna Prescod, planned to help St. John’s reach this amazing and most heart-warming goal for the Brooklyn holidays. She recruited friends, followers, and staff-members through social media to be part of this year’s “Sponsor A Family” volunteer team.
On Saturday, December 20th from 11am to 5pm and again on Sunday, December 21st, the OurBKSocial Volunteer Team met at 795 Lexington Avenue between Patchen and Malcolm X for the annual “Sponsor A Family” signature event at Bread and Life. This amazing organization was featured last month in our Discovering Brooklyn Series while touring Bedford-Stuyvesant.
On Saturday, the OurBKSocial Volunteer Team energetically assisted in the garage packing and distributing heavy boxes of food that will provide 2,000 families with a delicious holiday meal. Each care package included a large fresh ham, farm grown vegetables, lentil casserole mix, Jiffy corn bread mix, a can of Red & White pineapple chunks, a can of Krandale peas and carrots, a bottle of Clover Valley blueberry pomegranate juice, and a pan of Christmas tree shaped home-made brownies; enough to sufficiently feed a family of six.
“This year the food for distribution is of very high quality; produced by New York State farmers and grown in a sustainable and healthy way,” said Christy Robb, St. John’s Director of Food Services. Because of the donations of our generous supporters, we were able to purchase the best.
Hams and Turkeys were purchased from Heritage Foods USA. Heritage buys quality meat from independent farmers. The animals used are healthy, allowed to pursue their natural instincts, and have been treated humanely. Unhealthy antibiotics and growth hormones are not used.
The vegetables “roots packages” (carrots, onions, parsnips, and turnips) were purchased from J Glebocki Farms; a fifth generation farmer who grows a wide variety of vegetables in Goshen, New York on very fertile soil.
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2000 pans of brownies were made with love by Melissa, CEO of Yummy Tummy, a local business located in Bedford-Stuyvesant. St. John’s raises money for quality products and OurBKSocial saw first hand that the food distributed on-site was fit for royalty.
On Sunday, the OurBKSocial Volunteer Team cheerfully welcomed families inside the Bread and Life “home”. Some worked as runners. A runner was responsible for locating and brining a pre-labeled bag filled with toys to the appropriate child. Others served as Santa’s helpers keeping the line to the North Pole organized and moving. Inside the room designated as the North Pole, stood a beautifully decorated Christmas tree. Along with jolly ole’ St. Nick seated in a large, plush, red chair, were Santa’s elves, a huge box, of what appeared to be, hundreds of bags of all kinds of candy, and new, age-appropriate gifts, books, toys and stuffed animals for children and young teens.
“We couldn’t run this massive operation without our wonderful volunteers,” said Jennifer Stephen, Volunteer Coordinator. Jennifer made sure to keep all of her volunteers well informed, well prepared and well feed.
“I would have been home doing nothing but instead I was given the opportunity to help others today and I love it, ” said a volunteer. Another said, ” just priceless, truly priceless seeing the looks on children’s faces as they opened their gifts.”
OurBKSocial sincerely thanks every volunteer who made it to Bread and Life this weekend. Please remember to be of service always. “Whether you make yourself available to a friend or co-worker, or you make time every month to do volunteer work, there is nothing that harvests more of a feeling of empowerment than being of service to someone in need. – Gillian Anderson
For those of you who could not help this weekend and want to serve the community, please bring or send in one can of Enfamil to Jennifer Stephen at St. John’s Bread and Life. There is nothing better in this world than giving freely from your heart.
