To Be Well Fed Newsletter

March 2022 TBWF Highlights

Your donation helps to provide weekly groceries to 150+ students and their families every single week!  Thank you!

In March, we rescued and distributed $17,510 (6,640 lbs.) worth of food with the help of PlusOne and Food Rescue DC!  In the past, TBWF’s primary “food getting” technique was to purchase it. We continue to purchase food, especially non-perishables that are essential for our pantry programs.  Now we also collect and “rescue” food from local stores such as Mom’s Organic Market, Target, Trader Joes, and the Ballston Farmer’s Market to distribute to the schools we serve.  “Food getting” is a lot of work!  It requires researching what food will be available and when, arranging for pick up, sorting, organizing, storing and eventually delivering the goods to their destinations. One of our biggest challenges is access to refrigeration --to keep this fresh, gorgeous, nutritious, mostly organic, and incredibly diverse food, just that-- beautiful and fresh.

Speaking of REFRIGERATION – a generous donor has provided the funding to purchase large industrial freezers and refrigerators for our room at River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation (RRUUC) and next to our pantry at Friendship SE Academy! So, we are on our way to building the cold storage infrastructure needed to deliver more fresh, healthy food to the students and families we serve.  Unfortunately, supply chain issues have delayed the arrival of these appliances…Hopefully we will have them soon!

Our room at RRUUC is a game changer, giving us a holding and processing space for food so we can take advantage of food rescue opportunities.  It is a dynamic space, filled to capacity with food one day, and then empty the next.

We are beyond grateful for our continuing partnership with No Child Goes Hungry – together we can do epic things!

Fighting childhood hunger in Washington DC is a community effort. We are so grateful for your support!

Let's end hunger in Ward 8 at www.tobewellfed.org/donate

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