Happy New Year and Thank You for the generous year-end contributions we have been finding in our SVdP mailbox! Your generosity is greatly appreciated and allows us to continue to serve our neighbors in need.

Our next big project is the Gleaners/Kroger Food Pantry Project. We’ll need lots of volunteers for the weekend of January 17 and 18, and you don’t need to be a member of our SVdP conference to get involved!

A quick synopsis: Gleaners partners with Kroger stores all over southeastern Michigan to provide food to over 550 non-profit organizations that have a program that feeds those in need in our community. These organizations include soup kitchens, pantries, shelters, and schools. Because our conference has an emergency food pantry, we are eligible to participate.

We’ve been assigned the Kroger store at 26300 Crocker Blvd. (near Metro Parkway/16 Mile) in Harrison Twp. We will be teaming up with other Gleaners volunteers over the course of the weekend to staff this Kroger store. We will distribute “shopping lists” at the entrance—requesting that incoming Kroger shoppers consider purchasing an item or two on the list to donate to Gleaners. Then there will be volunteers stationed near the checkout counters to collect the donations.

• We will need volunteers to cover shifts at the store both Saturday 10-6 and Sunday noon-6. Kids are welcome to participate with an adult.
• We’ll need drivers to bring the donated groceries from the Kroger back to St. Clare.
• We also want to invite students needing service hours to participate, so we’ll need adults to drive and supervise them.
• We’ll need volunteers at St. Clare on Saturday and Sunday afternoons to help receive the groceries from the drivers and organize/stock the pantry. Again, kids with an adult are welcome.

If you would like to participate or need more information, please contact Barb at [email protected] or Diane at [email protected]. You may also leave a message on our SVdP Assistance line: 313-647-5062.