Take and Eat, Inc - Berkshire Foundation $20,000 Non-Profit Give-Away Results - Click BELOW for details

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Take and Eat, Inc.- “People Feeding People” - Click HERE

                   

Take and Eat, Inc. - Request for your Vote for Funding from Berkshire Bank

Dear Weekend Meals Ministry Coordinator for the Take and Eat, Inc. Program,

On December 16 I sent each of you a request for assistance in a Grant we are seeking that is being offered by Berkshire Bank Foundation to 4 community non-profits. Essentially, the $20,000 that will be equally shared by the four recipients will be awarded to the "top 4 vote-getters".  A copy of that request with details can be found below and it is also detailed on our website: www.takeandeat.org  The Deadline for Voting is January 31, 2010.

Gladys, the Parish Secretary for Most Holy Redeemer – Hadley, was gracious enough to contact the Berkshire Bank Foundation on our behalf and advises that the Foundation will accept on-line as well as mail in votes.  In order to assist us, Gladys furthered the voting opportunity by creating a ballot which can be used by those individuals who wish to vote but don't have access to a computer. Instructions are also furnished on this ballot for those individuals who can vote on-line.  I am attaching this form which you may personalize with your Parish/Meals Ministry name and would very much appreciate your furnishing a ballot to your clients and parishioners. Those clients who wish to vote can return their ballot to their weekend driver who should provide it to you (Meals Ministry Coordinator) to turn in to the Parish office.  Those votes can be sent in to the Berkshire Bank Foundation:

Berkshire Bank Foundation, Inc.  P. O. Box 1308  Pittsfield, MA 01202 Attn: "$20,000 Non- Profit Vote"

with those collected by parishioners in the weekend collection baskets.   If it is agreeable to the individual parishes, as Most Holy Redeemer is doing, this ballot/information could be included in the Parish Bulletin as an insert.  I have copied those parish offices for whom I have email addresses to "put them on board" so they will have a heads up when you contact them.

As stated in my earlier correspondence, Take and Eat is competing with the "big boys" and we need as much support as we can obtain.  $5,000 would greatly assist us in sustaining and growing this Meals Ministry to our Homebound Senior Communities – as many of you realize, we are currently providing all of the packaging supplies to the majority of our sites through another Grant we were awarded last year from Bank of America and Community Foundation of Western Mass.  However, as our client base continues to grow, obviously so do those costs to expand it. 

We greatly appreciate your assistance and thank you for continuing to "put shoes on the Gospel Message" through Take and Eat's mission of "people feeding people".  Thank you and God Bless,

Deacon Frank and Kathleen Ryan

Take and Eat, Inc.

www.takeandeat.org

Take and Eat Meals Ministry - Berkshire County and Pioneer Valley (Greenfield/Turners Falls - Chicopee - Ludlow - Easthampton - Holyoke - Hadley/N. Hadley - S. Hadley/Granby)

TAKE AND EAT, INC  PEOPLE FEEDING PEOPLE"

A Blessed Thanksgiving to each of the Coordinators and all of your Team Ministry Members at The Weekend Meals Ministry sites throughout Berkshire County and the Pioneer Valley!  Deacon Frank and I, along with all of the over 1,700 clients and their caregivers and family members, count each of you as a special blessing in our lives.  You are individually and collectively truly demonstrating "putting shoes on the Gospel message" through your beautiful works of charity in this ministry to our homebound seniors…you have touched many, many lives in multiple ways – spiritually and physically…you epitomize Blessed Teresa's message of "do small things with great love"…thank you and God Bless you and your family…

I am attaching the 2010 Calendar for each of your sites.  Essentially, I have mirrored what you committed to when your team entered this ministry. In those instances where your scheduled weekend falls on a 3 day holiday weekend that is identified on the spreadsheet.

I am requesting the Coordinators review this schedule and book those dates with your kitchen and advise appropriate Parish staff/committees.  Should it be necessary to do a schedule change due to a conflict, please let me know ASAP.  As you can appreciate, once this information is shared with the various Elder Services agencies, clients and posted on the web site (www.takeandeat.org), those dates are "in stone".  We wish to finalize this calendar by December 10, 2009 so please let me know prior to that date if you have any questions, etc.

Once again, thank you and may the coming year be a blessed, peace-filled and bountiful year ahead…and we ask you to please keep the Take and Eat Program, all of its clients and volunteers in your prayers as we go forward maintaining and  expanding this Ministry during this New Year…in closing, we offer the following prayer for you on this Day of Thanksgiving…Blessings, Kathleen and Deacon Frank

 

Thank you for the blessings that you give to us each day; For friends and family we hold dear, for all you send our way. We ask that you will guide us well, in everything we do, And pray we never will forget these blessings came from you. Amen.

From the Easthampton Council on Aging

ANNOUNCING TAKE AND EAT, INC.:  Highland Valley Elder Services and Take and Eat, Inc. are pleased to inform you that volunteers from the Immaculate Conception Church in Easthampton will be preparing and delivering free, hot, nutritious meals to homebound seniors in Easthampton.  These meals will be prepared and delivered the 4th Saturday of each month and will consist of one meal for Saturday and one meal for Sunday.   Meals will be delivered between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.  If you are interested in receiving these Saturday home delivered meals from Immaculate Conception, please contact the Enrichment Center for the necessary paperwork or call Kathleen Ryan of the Take and Eat Program at 413-664-1041.