Summary
information about donations and the March fundraiser
A great fundraiser in March and unexpected fantastic donations are keeping our shelves and fridges pretty flush during the last couple of weeks. We were able to raise over $3000 in March including matching funds and more are expected to support purchases of staples over the next couple of months. These items supplement the fresh food donated each week. We are also getting regular small donations or food dropped at the pantry or at Carol’s or Dianne’s homes to help too.
Even with the big Easter event we had a good turnout. It was a bit of a challenge coming in early but we got it all done.
We had a few of massive donations this week- bread/pastries, chips, and strawberries to fill the room up. Every week lately Bassam has brought in 2-3 duffles of greens from his community garden plot to share and the neighbors have shared quite a few bottles of spices. Thanks to Jeff and Debb for picking up the huge donation of about 900 sandwiches and chips from the school group in Round Rock.(see photo below) I put about 20 in the freezer and the rest of the carful was given out. We had only had a little meat left for next week, 5 boxes of bread and canned veggies and meat for the homeless boxes. We have pretty full shelves of canned foods, sweets, chips and coffee at present.
I have been noticing more multigenerational sign ins with persons in their 60s and 70s listing kids in their household. We got a recent request for after school food for kids at a new apartment complex that is low-income. The kids aren’t having much food in the house so Kaye’s sister wants to have a snack pantry for them. She expects 40-60 kids so it is going to be a stretch to get them fixed up. We sent chips, cookies, and snack bars this week. We’ll see what we can do for them as the weeks go on. Carol reached out to several other groups to try to get them so resources.
We really miss having Kerby’s Clothing ministry each week to support additional services at Gus Garcia Rec Center. His sudden death has saddened so many. He is resting peacefully now in Nashville. His daughters graciously listed Carol’s Kindness as a charity to donate to in his memory.
Carol’s Kindness is participating in a Zero Waste Business Rebate program https://www.austintexas.gov/zwbizrebateterms that is covering some of our efforts to increase storage capacity for the panty. We were able to cover the extra freezer we use, 2 additional shelving units, an additional collapsable dolly for moving the crates of food around and hopefully to cover our recently repairs refrigerator. We are trying our compostable items from Sprouts that were donated to us because they had the wrong SKU number. It should keep a few more items out of the landfill. Carol is on the city compost program and we are able to share compostable foodstuff with the community garden at Gus Garcia too.
Thanks to our continuing donors because without them there would be no pantry or food to share: Sprouts Farmers Market, Target, The Canteen, Specs, Costco , Lone Star Family Market.
Pantry 4/19/25
Total signed in: 150
Total household served 446
Total Seniors served 66
Total Kids served 97 + donation to Kaye for kids at the apartments
Total unhoused 86 at pantry and 120 outreach between Jeff & Debb and George.
Sent chips and bread to 2 free fridges
Total volunteers this week 53 and thankful for each and every one!