Teams in our Food Security Project (FSP) reported 42 events in April, serving 12,719 individual beneficiaries and giving out at least 7,577 meals! Additional GO Humanity Service Teams (GO Teams) held 21 more service events.

Team of the Month (pictured above) goes to Freethinkers Association of Central Texas. They had two big projects in April. First, they prepped 395 hot meals and 2,100 sandwiches for migrants in need around San Antonio in partnership the San Antonio Food Bank. They also volunteered at the Food Bank’s warehouse, packing 1,080 boxes of SNAP food and produce—about 32,400 meals for the community.

 

Photo of the Month (above) goes to Food Security Project team Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix. The photo shows a volunteer cooling off soup with an ice paddle before storing it for distribution to people in need. It’s part of an initiative through Project Roots, which feeds unsheltered people from community gardens.  Enough soup was made at this event for distribution to about 100 people.

 

Humanist Alliance Philippines International (HAPI)

In celebration of Earth Day, HAPI volunteers coordinated with the San Jose Municipal Government for a project helping planted trees become more resilient by mulching around their roots. They mulched 50 trees at a local elementary school alongside school staff, and HAPI’s Green Movement Ambassador gave a mini-lecture on how to handle the mulch.

Southeastern Virginia Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists (SEVASH)

SEVASH maintains two free food pantries in the towns of Norfolk and Newport News, Virginia. 7 known volunteers contributed approximately 440 pounds of food in April month at a cost of roughly $383. With funds received from the Food Security Project, the group recruited a new volunteer and was better able to reimburse contributors and increase contribution levels.

Humanists of Tallahassee

This team met four times in April alongside a local progressive church to distribute snack and hygiene packs to people experiencing homelessness! Recipients got granola bars, water, applesauce, pudding, peanut butter crackers, Vienna sausages, washcloths, soap, shampoo, deodorant, razors, toothbrush, toothpaste, period products, and socks.

Central New York Humanist Association

This Syracuse-based team met on Earth Day to clean around a local creek, and again to plant native trees! The team planted trees in 5 locations around Onondaga County, consisting of 30 hazelnut shrubs, 10 redbud trees, and 30 sweet juniper trees obtained from the Cortland Division of Soil and Conservation and the Department of Environmental Conservation. Their goal was habitat enrichment and future carbon sequestration.

Atheists United

This Los Angeles-based team met for their big monthly food distribution in Historic Filipinotown. Volunteers sorted groceries into 35-pound food kits and distributed them to 111 food-insecure households. They even had dog and cat food on hand for pet owners!

Houston Freethought Oasis

This group’s volunteers worked with Books Between Kids, counting, sorting, packing and warehousing books for at-risk youth!

Central Ohio United Non-Theists (COUNT)

This Columbus, Ohio-based team worked at the Van Buren Shelter to serve dinners and clean  the facility. They also worked as Housewarmers at the Ronald McDonald House, providing a homelike environment for families staying at the facility while their kids are treated at nearby hospitals. COUNT volunteers have contributed 1,845 hours from the start of their involvement with Ronald McDonald House in 2013.

Humanist Community of Central Ohio

This team partnered with above-mentioned team COUNT to clean up trash for 9 hours along side their adopted stretch of highway!

Humanist Society Greater Phoenix

In addition to the soup-prep event mentioned above, this Arizona team also ran a successful blood drive for the Red Cross—smashing a 22-unit goal by collecting 36! The Red Cross has been very happy with their events, and they have several more planned for the rest of the year.

Austin Texas Humanists At Work (ATXHAW)

Volunteers for ATXHAW met five times in April for hot meal distributions with Mosaic Street Ministry. They made Easter turkey dinners; BBQed hot dogs; sandwiches; breakfast casseroles;  and distributed some donated Indian food!

Atheist Community of Polk County

This central Florida team met three times in April for their Weekends Without Hunger program, packing and distributing food supplies to kids in need at a local elementary school!

Austin Atheists Helping the Homeless

This Texas team performed their big mass giveaway to people experiencing homelessness. Volunteers met the day before the event to sort through boxes of toiletries and food and pack it into individual care bags. Then they gave it out in two locations where unsheltered people live. Thanks to the Food Security Project grant, they were able to provide additional food in each bag, including fresh fruit. They also supplied month-long bus passes to a couple people in a long-term support program offered by the team.

Central Florida Freethought Community (CFFC)

CFFC volunteers removed debris at six-acre Kewannee Park and accompanying areas in Casselberry, FL!

North Orlando Oasis

This team had a busy month in April! Their activities included:

• Participating in a Walk for Parkinson’s, raising money for Parkinson’s Association of Central Florida and raising awareness for community living with the disease.
• Meeting five times for a Farm Produce for Shelters project through Connecting Care Kitchens. Volunteers delivered 675 pounds of produce and 675 hot meals to a local shelter, all from organic farms!
• Working on neighborhood farms through their Mutual Aid Garden Club, removing weeds and harvesting veggies for a low-cost CSA in an Orlando food desert. They were also able to share seeds, plant starts, and cuttings from the farms with community members.
• Participating in an Earth Day event for the Garden Club to give out free seeds and seed starter supplies; hold workshops; distribute vegan food; make crafts; and more!

Kenya Humanist Alliance

This powerhouse east Africa team…

• Maintained five farms where they are growing maize, beans, and Irish potatoes for food-insecure people. They were happy to report the maize they planted a week ago has germinated!
• Renovated an unsanitary water borehole serving villages in Kisumu County

• Harvested cassava and supplied it to orphans impacted by drought and famine
• Donated Water Guard (Sodium Hypochlorite 1.2%) for treatment of water fetched from boreholes and rivers. The team also identified a need to educate communities about the importance of water treatment and made plans to start incorporating it into their giveaways.
• Donated sleeping bags and fresh produce to unsheltered people in Kisumu City, including women and children

All these projects have been made possible through grants from the Food Security Project and Kenya Humanist Alliance extends their sincerest thanks to donors!

 

Food Rescue Alliance Teams

Four of affiliates of our major grantee Food Rescue Alliance are among the volunteer teams receiving grants in the Food Security Project. Here’s what they’ve been up to:

360 Eats

This Safet Harbor, FL team met five times for community meal services at local pantries and shelters, serving 500 nutritious meals altogether!

The Food Drive

This Melrose, MA team writes:

“In April 2022, The Food Drive reached the milestone of 300,000 pounds of food distributed – an incredible amount kept out of landfills by a small grassroots nonprofit operating for only 18 months! This number translates to 750,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions prevented, which was an accomplishment we celebrated during Earth Month. It also translates to the $501,000 in value and most importantly, the equivalent of 261,000 meals for our local community.

“The Food Drive also fully implemented our Community Freezer program, a partnership between Melrose First United Methodist Church and The Food Drive to provide healthy meals for local food pantries, motel shelters, and community members experiencing food insecurity, especially those with immediate needs. As a result, when a motel shelter reached out to us in April because they were running low on food for their guests, The Food Drive immediately delivered meals for everyone in the shelter.

“Food is a basic human right, and The Food Drive is on a mission to ensure that everyone in our community has fresh, nutritious food.”

CORMII Community Development Corporation

This Rockingham County, North Carolina meets every Thursday for a weekly curbside food distribution. April was no exception!

CAFE Food Rescue

This food rescue in Summit County, Colorado operates free food coolers in local Starbucks and at a community clinic. In April, they wrote:

“Our April 2022 Food Rescue Our food collection are still increasing and reached 2,905 pounds this month. We packaged some food from the Keystone Conference Center to be distributed at a partner food market. We did the packaging at the donor site. This resulted in 11 packages of 4 servings of fish and 12 packages of 2 servings of chicken and 24 quarts of potato leek soup! We are still working on a commissary agreement with a commercial kitchen so that we can take food from caterers and package it to get it out into the community. We are still working on grant applications. Yes! We packaged some food from a donor at their site. Up until now, we could only take this in bulk to a couple of agencies that can take whole hotel pans of food. We are trying to find a commissary kitchen that has a small amount of cooled storage that we need. We may be installing a three bay sink in the food market of one of our partners to make this work.”

Sponsor one of these hard-working teams by setting up a recurring donation of $100 per month.