Helping 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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Upcoming Wednesday Pantry Dates:
Sept. 12
(Beth El is lead congregation)
Sept. 19
(Christ Church is lead congregation)
Sept. 26
Oct. 10
Oct. 17
Oct. 24
Oct. 31
We need tons of help every pantry Wednesday*
from
8:15 am - 12:00 pm.
Please join us for all or any portion of that time.
We need lots of help every week to accomplish all we do!
We particularly need extra volunteers on Wednesday Sept. 19, when a number of our regular volunteers will not be at pantry due to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
We also always need extra help the last pantry Wednesday of the month (Sept. 26 and Oct. 31) when we have pallets and pallets of produce (as much as 6,000 - 10,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables) as part of the monthly Farmer's Market program. We anticipate needing extra help on Oct. 31 when some regular volunteers may be involved in Halloween-related activities.
We welcome and need you not only when your group comes are a team, but every Wednesday you are available for any period of time you can give. Come before work or drive over after carpooling kids to school. We are at pantry until 11:30/noon on Wednesdays and volunteers are needed for later shifts
*
We are closed the first Wednesday of each month.
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Tuesday
Volunteer Opportunities
Sept. 11**
Oct. 16
1:30 - 3:30 pm
We need strong help as we unload and shelve as much as 8,000 pounds of food from the Community FoodBank
and
bring a month's worth of diapers to our storage area in the Church.
We need additional volunteers to help pack diapers and accomplish other tasks.
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September 11 - what a special day to give back to the community! This is not our "usual" truck week, but we have re-arranged our September calendar.
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Looking for a weekend volunteer opportunity?
September is Hunger Action Month – a month where people all over America stand together to fight hunger.
Join us to collect food and cash for
MEND
for the Action Against Hunger Food Drive, Sunday, September 30th, noon - 4:00 p.m, at Kings Short Hills. RSVP to
[email protected]
.
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Hunger Busters at the IFPO
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For too many kids, when school’s out, the hungry season begins. Nearly 300,000 New Jersey children rely on school breakfasts and lunches as their only reliable source of food each day. In order to help ensure that the children of the IFPO have enough food this summer, we provided special Hunger Busters bags three times this summer. These bags contained child-friendly foods like low-sugar cereal, cheese sticks, bananas, peanut butter, eggs, canned tuna and chicken, whole wheat penne, baby carrots, and whole wheat bread.
Our thanks to
MEND
and to the sponsors of the Prudential Golf Outing, whose generosity helped underwrite this program.
Thanks also to Justin Baltuch, who collected reusable bags for a mitzvah project, which we used for our July Hunger Busters program.
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The IFPO in action over the summer
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Worldwide Orphans' Element of Play Toy Library
program supports child development and school readiness, heals trauma and creates healthy, connected and vibrant communities. We are thrilled to have it be part of our pantry each week.We're delighted that WWO founder Dr.
Jane Aronson
, a global pediatric specialist was able to be on hand as well on Aug. 8.
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The IFPO has won $1,000 from the Sue Adler Team's 100th Home Sale Challenge, thanks to your votes. That buys a lot of healthy food! Thanks for helping us serve our food insecure neighbors.
It was an honor to to be nominated and to “play” along with so many worthwhile charity organizations.
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The fabulous produce we received this summer from the Millburn Community Garden helped us in our quest to provide healthy choices for our clients. Thanks to all the growers for your efforts to feed our neighbors.
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Our clients love when fresh eggs are a protein choice. We are grateful to
Farm & Fork Society, which provided 70 dozen eggs to us most months this summer. And when we didn't get eggs from Farm & Fork, we got fabulous produce instead!
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We are always happy to be able to give out children's books to enhance the personal libraries of our the children of the IFPO. We accept donations of children's books as well as cookbooks.
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We were able to provide wonderful greens (including arugula and watercress) from
Newark's
Aerofarms
, the world's largest indoor vertical farm, throughout the summer at a sharply discounted rate. We are just thrilled to be able to provide restaurant-quality greens to our clients.
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IFPO clients in attendance on August 8 received
5 pairs of socks each due to the generosity of the amazing
Bombas
company. Bombas has to date donated over 9 million pairs of special socks to those in need. An anti-microbial treatment ensures they don't need to be washed as often, and reinforced seams and darker colors give them greater durability with less visible wear.
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Our diabetes program participants continued medical screenings provided by Summit Medical Group Foundation and received bi-monthly boxes of healthy foods including brown rice, whole wheat pasta and veggies.This program is underwritten by SMG Foundation and the Community FoodBank of NJ.
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Backpack Distribution and Vision Screenings Help IFPO Children Get Ready for School
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In August, the IFPO helped 1156 households (3888 people total) by
providing groceries, fresh fruit and vegetables, toiletries and diapers. On August 29th, we helped the IFPO’s young clients get ready for the new school year by distributing 270 backpacks through the generosity of our partner
Summit Medical Group Foundation
.
SMG Foundation also provided free vision screenings to children age 8 and up at pantry on Aug. 29
.
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Having a brand new backpack filled with school supplies means a child can head to school ready to start the new year, excited to learn and ready for success.
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A voucher for free glasses was given to each child in need of vision correction.
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IFPO clients attend NCJW Back to School Store
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The children were taken by individual personal shoppers through the Store (set up at
Joseph Kushner Hebrew Acad
emy). Each child received brand new merchandise: a winter coat, hat, gloves; shoes, socks and underwear; pants and shirts; backpack, toiletries, school supplies and books. Meanwhile, their patient and positive parents took advantage of social services such as: glucose screening, fingerprinting and ID services, vision screening, blood pressure checks, diabetes information, and NCJW resources.
You can see one of the many news coverages of this event
here
.
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The IFPO Teen Board is happy to welcome new members.
If you have a student in high school who is interested in joining the IFPO Teen Board, have them call us at 973-856-4000 or send an email to [email protected]. We were delighted they could join us as pantry volunteers on Aug, 29.
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The IFPO diaper program
keeps our youngest and most vulnerable clients clean, dry and healthy.
We distributed diapers to
278 babies this month. It takes a hard working and generous village to have gathered and distributed almost 14,000 diapers this past month (a new all-time high for us), as well as wipes and diaper cream.
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We post tons of pictures on
Facebook
after each pantry date. Follow us there to see all the great weekly happenings!
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