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Interfaith Food Pantry
of the Oranges
H
elping to meet essential human needs of food-insecure residents of Orange and East Orange, NJ, with dignity and respect.
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A proud member of the MEND network of food pantries
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Today is Giving Tuesday.
Consider a contribution to the IFPO!
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As IFPO volunteers and supporters, you clearly know how much we all gain when we give back.
As a global movement, #GivingTuesday unites communities around the world by sharing our capacity to care for and empower one another.
We are very grateful for your donation of time, resources and talents to help our neighbors in Orange and East Orange.
Even before our Thanksgiving distribution, IFPO had served close to 8,000 clients and emergency guests, representing close to 25,000 individuals, in 2017. Forty percent of those we serve are children.
If you have already participated in our ThankGiving Appeal, please accept our most sincere gratitude. If you have not yet responded to our appeal, or if you are inspired to further support the wonderful work of the IFPO, here's how you can contribute financially. While we are delighted to accept checks payable to IFPO and sent to P.O. Box 341, Short Hills, NJ 07078, you can also click the "Pay Now" button here to make an online, tax deductible contribution via Paypal. 
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SIGN UP FOR OUR CHRISTMAS DISTRIBUTION
:
On Wednesday, December 20, we will distribute hams, festive holiday groceries as well as regular groceries, and toys to an anticipated 400 clients.
Volunteers are needed to unload trucks; organize, fill and distribute grocery bags; organize and distribute toys; distribute hams; and escort clients. If you would like to help with this distribution, you MUST
sign up in advance. Children MUST be at least 12 years old to help that day.
New Toys Wante
d:
The IFPO
is conducting a very targeted new -- never used -- toy collection. Our goal is to collect 1,000 toys for our clients to select as holiday gifts for their children.
During the IFPO's 2016 holiday food distribution, many parents thanked us for the holiday food they received and shared that they could not afford to purchase toys for their children for Christmas. We decided to do what we could to ensure that none of our IFPO children will go without a new toy for Christmas 2017. This will be the only toy that some of these children will receive. Full details of the toy drive can be found
here.
Toys ordered through the registry will be delivered directly to one of our drop off sites (no need for you to transport).
The IFPO is open Dec. 27 -
Sign up required to volunteer.
Children MUST be at least 12 years old to help that day.
Celebrating Chanukah? Donate Cooking Oil to the IFPO.
Chanukah
(12/12/17-12/20/17) tells us of the miracle of the oil many years ago in a land far away. This Chanukah, you can create your own miracle of the oil for people right here in our own community.
Cooking oil is one of the most requested grocery items by our food-insecure clients, but not a commodity we often supply. We are looking to collect at least 250 plastic bottles of vegetable or canola oil (48 ounce size) for distribution to our clients during January. Please consider donating a plastic bottle of oil to the IFPO, or make a donation to the IFPO (checks to P.O. Box 341, Short Hills, NJ 07078 marked "cooking oil drive" or by clicking on the "Pay Now" button here to enable us to purchase oil on sale in bulk). Tribute cards can be sent if you donate in honor of someone for a minimum donation of $18 for this event. What a significant Chanukah gift for children or grandchildren!
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We are thrilled to have been able to furnish groceries, the "fixings" for Thanksgiving (like cranberry sauce and gravy), roasting pans, pies, and frozen turkeys to 575 clients and members of the Orange and East Orange communities at our Nov. 22 Thanksgiving distribution.
This would not have been possible without the many volunteers who helped out on November 22, and the very generous support of our many donors and our Thanksgiving Sponsors, to whom we are so grateful:
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The Bass Foundation
, whose continued generosity allowed us to provide 500 clients with mini-marshmallows and a fresh apple pie, and who also contributed significantly so we could purchase additional needed turkeys. In addition, the Bass Foundation donated 70 new coats to our Coat Drive.
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| Peggy Barnett, Executive Director of the Bass Foundation, delivers Bass' Thanksgiving gift to the IFPO's Janet Schwamm. |
Melissa Goldberg and Farm and Fork Society, who donated 800 pounds of gorgeous organic produce.
Stop & Shop, South Orange
(and Manager Joseph Heiser)
who provided all the fixings for the sack lunch distributed to our clients as they left on Wednesday the 22nd.
Susan Nasberg-Abrams and Dina Pressel organized a crew of family and friends to make 500 bag lunches for us to distribute.
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Kings Supermarkets, who donated 100 turkeys to this event.
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| Members of the IFPO Board pick up donated turkeys from Kings of Short Hills. |
We could never have served so many at Thanksgiving without the help of
Maplecrest Moves Charities. Jen Miller (seen here with IFPO's Jodi Cooperman) brought the Maplecrest Moves van to help us pick up food at the Community Food Bank (CFB) on Nov. 14, helped us pick up Holiday Boxes at CFB on Nov. 21, and then delivered them to us on Nov. 22 for our Thanksgiving event.
Squirrel and The Bee also made their van available for our CFB pickup on Nov. 14.
BCB Community Bank of South Orange.
for Justice Trial Lawyers
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Bill Gold presents a check to IFPO's Diane Stein.
Elliott Sommer and the Susan Sommer Fund for Social Justice.
Doug and Carol Simon.
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We prepared food for the annual community Thanksgiving Luncheon at Church of the Epiphany and Christ Church
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300 families enjoyed a Thanksgiving luncheon (and leftovers!) at our host Church on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
We so appreciate all who prepared and donated food to enable this annual community celebration, including friends from Powerhouse Gym.
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Congregation B'ai Jeshurun Chavura Religious School families prepared many trays of food for this event.
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Special thanks to
Rob Ubhaus of
Redux Restaurant in Madison who cooked ten delicious turkeys for the lunch, and to Neil Erman and Adam Bell who manned the carving station for us!
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A special friend of the IFPO, now in ROTC, came with a friend to give back by volunteering at the lunch.
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More special friends: Steven Talmadge enjoys lunch with William and Sandy Johnson.
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Thanks to those who supported our Drives and "Pantry Prep" on Sunday Nov. 19
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Laura, Bob, Reilly and` Robbie Almgren were again our faithful U-Haul drivers and helpers on Nov. 19, bringing the truck first to the TSTI Drive to collect turkeys, food and coats, and then to the Church.
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Michael Schwamm is not only our IFPO pro-bono attorney, he also volunteers. He accepted the 100th turkey donated to the TSTI Drive on Nov. 19 from Peggy Barnett.
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As part of our pantry prep activities, paper plates with messages about food insecurity were created.These will be sent to elected officials to remind them of the importance of supporting funding for food programs. #SNAPFEEDSNJ.
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Thank you to our Coat Drive Supporters, who Provided Warmth for our Clients
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We were thrilled to distribute new and gently used winter coats to our clients due to the generosity of those who contributed to coat drives run at TSTI, TBJ, Christ Church - Short Hills and by the Sisterhood of Congregation Beth El. We are also extremely thankful to
ECLC
and their director
Bruce Litinger;
Keller Williams Mid-Town Direct Realty (
Jen Lieberman
); Clarity Refractive Services, Bed, Bath and Beyond (Jonathan DeCiantis), The Hilton of Short Hills,
and
David Leit and
Lowenstein Sandler LLP
, all of whom hosted coat drives for us. Coats were also delivered to us by Prospect Church/Mend. And thanks, too, to Daisy Scout Troop #20745 whose collection was accompanied by a lovely note as well as charming drawings.
For the second year, we moved the coats to a tent outside the Sanctuary. Our thanks
to
Marty Fox and
Almar Party & Tent Rentals
for making this tent possible.
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ECLC of New Jersey, under the direction of Bruce Litinger, delivers coats.
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Lowenstein Sandler LLP collected and delivered a virtual mountain of coats!
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The IFPO's Cyndy Wyatt accepts coats from the Clarity Refractive Services Drive from
Jennifer Bergoch.
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Bags of coats were delivered by Chris Danuser for the drive hosted by
Jen Liebeman of Keller Williams Midtown Direct.
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Daisy Troop #20745 (girls in kindergarten and 1st grade) brought us warm coats, sweaters, and winter accessories as they learned helping others is one way to help make the world a better place.
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Great help was available while picking out coats.
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What starts out as a giant pile
soon looks like this due to the work of our volunteers led by Gail Roth and Ellen Tamaroff, our Coat Tent Coordinators.
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A brand new winter coat is a wonderful thing.
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Winter is coming, so our clients are very grateful for the opportunity to pick out an adult's or child's warm coat.
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Images of our Thanksgiving Distribution
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Our registration crew checked in 422 registered clients (1,319 total people served: 586 kids, 681 adults and 80 seniors) clients for our Thanksgiving distribution. They handle our multi-lingual clients with such grace and dignity. We also served "emergency guests".
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Our greeter Steve Rod meets Debra Vizzi, head of the Community FoodBank of NJ.
Debra's story, from growing up as a foster child facing multiple placements, hunger and abuse, to head of this wonderful organization, is truly inspiring.
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We were delighted Debra chose to help at our Thanksgiving distribution. Here she helps escort clients. Clients are escorted to the coat tent, through the halls, into Parish Hall for 3 bags and a lunch, and then to the turkey truck.
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Clients on line at 6:45 am!
We provided groceries, Thanksgiving food items including apple pies and mini-marshmallows, produce, turkeys and roasting pans (as well as coats) to a total of 574 registered clients and emergency guests. That's 1850 people who otherwise might not have had a Thanksgiving meal or a warm coat this winter.
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Clients waited in the Sanctuary after they were checked in. Forty percent of the clients we serve are children.
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The bagging crew starts our work.
Putting together the "regular" grocery bag, filled with ravioli, peanut butter, sunflower oil, spaghetti sauce, mac and cheese, rice, oatmeal, powdered milk, tuna, green beans, beans, soup and sweet potatoes. We hauled out 500 of each of 13 items, and then carefully placed them into a bag of regular groceries for each client.
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Putting together the holiday bag of fresh items delivered by Shoprite that morning: carrots, celery, 3 pounds of apples, mini-marshmallows and apple pie. We also gave out 800 pounds of produce like winter squash and potatoes from Farm and Fork Society.
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We purchased 500 Holiday boxes from the Community FoodBank of NJ that contained stuffing, gravy, instant potatoes, mac and cheese, cranberry sauce, green beans, yams, corn and peaches. In order for clients to be able to carry them home, we loaded the contents of these boxes into reuseable bags. You'll be glad to know we recycle all this cardboard!
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Inside our regular bag. Clients received 3 re-useable bags, with a note (in English, Spanish and Haitian-Creole) asking them to bring these bags back on future dates. We are hoping the bags will be generally useful for them, and hoping to cut down on the paper and plastic bags for which we have a massive need.
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Bags are lined up and ready to go. Our hard working baggers
did 100 sets of bags 5 times throughout the morning.
An overhead view of what goes on as we create those 500 sets.
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It's so important to us that each client is treated with dignity and respect.
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Ready to go to the turkey truck.
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After all that waiting, happy to be back outside with lunch: cheese sandwich, a drink, dessert and a clementine.
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The symbol of Thanksgiving for most: the turkey! |
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Our turkey crew. We rented 3 U-Hauls to accommplish our mission this week.
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And now it's time to get it all home! |
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A creative solution to getting it all home.
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We were delighted to have so many terrific teens who were so lovely to all our clients.
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The IFPO Board, delighted with the results of the day: Back row from left: Karyn Boosin Leit, Janet Schwamm, Peggy Baggaley, Diane Stein, Lisa Goldberg Ozer, Cyndy Wyatt. Front row from left: Jodi Cooperman, Sandy French, Kristin Sterling, Shayna Schmidt.
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Thanks to our recent Food Drive Supporters, and Food and Goods Providers
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We were the very grateful recipient of recent food collections. Thank you to
Camp Winadu; JAG Physical Therapy; Farmers Insurance, Livingston; Today's Business; and Orange Elks Lodge No.135.
Washington School of Millburn brought us two carloads of food from their Thanksgiving Food Drive. And Hartshorn School and Glenwood School, Short Hills donated beautiful pies for our distribution.
Thank you also to Alpha Sigma Tau Sorority of Seton Hall. The 300 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches they made for our clients were a welcome treat at our Nov. 15 pantry day.
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JAG Physical Therapy has been a great partner for IFPO. For Thanksgiving this year they held a food drive for us.
A group of Millburn and Short Hills residents did a food collection for IFPO for Diwali, and then came to help us with pantry prep.
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It takes a lot of bags to hold 300 sandwiches! Thanks to Kaitlynn and the sisters of Alpha Sigma Tau.
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John Reitberger, Exalted Ruler Jim Nolan, and Teddy Katz of the Orange Elks Lodge No. 135.
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Today's Business (Stephanie Gallucci) and Farmers Insurance, Livingston both dropped off food for us.
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Baby blankets (and tiny hats) from Project Linus, brought to us by Eileen Davis, are a big hit with clients.
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