Updates: ‘food drive’
On Saturday, May 18, Wienerschnitzel in Buena Park is hosting a “Day of Hope” benefiting Giving Children Hope.
Guests who bring in canned food items between 9 am and 10 pm will receive raffle tickets for prizes. In addition, 20% of all purchases made with the attached flyer will go directly to GCHope.
Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to support GCHope and the We’ve Got Your Back program! We’ll see you there!
Giving Children Hope held a food drive for the We’ve Got Your Back program, in partnership with Buena Park Downtown and Brainpower Mania. WGYB currently feeds over 5,000 homeless children in Orange County every week and the food items collected will be distributed to the children and their families on the program. Sixteen local schools participated and over 10 pallets of food were collected. Buena Terra Elementary School collected the most items, over 1,300, and won $1,000 worth of school supplies. Runners-up Raymond Temple Elementary and St. Pius Elementary each won $500 worth of school supplies.
We’ve Got Your Back is a weekend nutrition program created by Giving Children Hope for elementary, junior high and high school students in Orange County’s school districts who have been identified as homeless under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Currently, there are over 28,000 children in Orange County’s elementary schools who are identified as homeless. Every week, Giving Children Hope provides food to 6,000 individuals through We’ve Got Your Back.
Giving Children Hope is in constant need of food for the children on the We’ve Got Your Back program. If you are interested in hosting a food drive or donating food items, please contact Paul Geisert at 714-523-4454 x 113 or email at pgeisert@gchope.org.
Giving Children Hope is a faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to alleviating poverty domestically and abroad through disaster relief, health and community development, vocational training and advocacy. For more information, visit www.gchope.org.
Below are pictures from the event:
Sydney L. first heard about Giving Children Hope through one of her family members and after receiving one of our emails asking to help with food for We’ve Got Your Back and supplies for Syrian Refugees, she decided to take action. She spread the word to her friends and family and hosted a drive for both causes, collecting a pallet and bins full of items. There were hygiene products and blankets for Syrian Refugees and all sorts of needed food items to go into the backpacks for our We’ve Got Your Back families. Sydney delivered the items all the way from Pasadena. Thank you, Sydney, our Pasadena angel!
We are in great need of food supply for our WGYB students. We’re currently serving over 4,000 children, the highest number yet. As the need in our community has grown, unfortunately, our food supply hasn’t. If you would like to host a food drive or donate items, please contact Paul Geisert for more information. You may also drop off items anytime from 8am – 5pm at our office: 8332 Commonwealth Ave., Buena Park, CA 90621.
We are also still collecting items for Syrian Refugees. Giving Children Hope has sent five containers thus far and we are planning to send two more. Some of the items being collected are: 1) Blankets; 2) Toothbrush & Toothpaste; 3) Shampoo; 4) Personal Care Items; 5) Other Hygiene Items. If you would like to host a drive for these items or if you’re interested in donating items, please contact Janet Valencia for more information.
We are always thinking of creative ways to get food for our We’ve Got Your Back students – even if it means picking fresh produce ourselves! Thanks to Loaves and Fishes X10, we were able to collect over 1,300 pounds of produce at the Great Park in Irvine. Our staff and volunteers worked rigorously for two hours picking the freshest cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower.
One of GCHope’s goals for our We’ve Got Your Back families was to provide them with fresh produce. We are so excited that we were able to do this and hope to continue to include produce in the backpacks.
More than 5,000 students are being served every week through our We’ve Got Your Back program. Currently, we have 46 schools enrolled in the program and anticipate to add more by the end of the school year.
We are in constant need of food for these children. If you are interested in hosting a food drive or donating food items, please contact Paul Geisert.
Below are pictures and a video (courtesy of Loaves and Fishes X10) from the Harvesting event:
The final count: 23 boxes of food, the highest amount collected so far this school year! And, it’s all from Christ Community Church, a congregation that assists the community in strengthening their faith through their outreach programs. The boxes were filled with peanut butter and jelly, soups, noodles, cereal boxes and dried fruits.
Thank you, Christ Community Church for taking time collecting, sorting and packing all of the items and delivering the boxes to us. All of the students on GCHope’s “We’ve Got Your Back” program will be delighted to receive their backpacks full of goodies.
If you would like to host a food drive, please contact Christine Sanchez. Below is our “We’ve Got Your Back” Food Drive Flyer:
We’ve Got Your Back Food Drive Flyer
Last month, we had UPS employees volunteer at our warehouse for our We’ve Got Your Back program. After seeing some empty shelves, Dolores Sanchez (Anaheim office) and Julie Hale (Aliso Viejo office) took the initiative to hold a food drive for us. They actually saw this as a perfect opportunity to promote GCHope for UPS’ Global Volunteer Month. It’s held every October, where all employees are encouraged to make an impact in their community by volunteering their time and talents to people and organizations in need. Thank you UPS employees for helping us collect food for our students and families on the We’ve Got Your Back program!
Number of People: 12
Area of Focus: We’ve Got Your Back
Accomplishments: Thanks so much to the Meguiars team down in Irvine. They were so gracious in their giving to our We’ve Got Your Back program. As a team, they were able to raise the food for 44 of our backpacks. Yesterday, they hosted a packing party at their own facility to fill these backpacks. In fact, they provided so much that they could barely fit it all in the backpacks! What a wonderful problem to have!!!
WGYB students at Oak View elementary were taken care of by them this week! Thanks Meguiars!
EIM
Number of People: 101!!
Area of focus: We’ve Got Your Back
Accomplishments: I would like to take this moment to bow down to EIM. They brought in 4 different groups in one week! Two morning groups of 18 and 28 people and two afternoon groups of 15 and 40 people bring their total of volunteers to a whopping 101 volunteers! As you can see in our photos, our warehouse did get a bit more crowded than normal, but we couldn’t be happier. They brought in 10+ boxes of donated food and sorted and organized much more than that! As if that weren’t enough, these amazing people filled and prepared a countless number of backpacks for distribution. You could hear the hustle and bustle combined with a lot of laughter and chit-chat from our warehouse a mile away. It was our pleasure having this generous group volunteer at Giving Children Hope and we would love to have them back anytime. Thank you EIM!
Over the past couple of weeks, Giving Children Hope has been truly blessed by all the food donations, including a truckload of items from Santa Ana Calvary Church. It was delivered by Matt Doan, who told us to expect another truckload this week! All of the items will serve our We’ve Got Your Back students and families. Thank you, Santa Ana Calvary Church!
We are in constant need of food for these students and families. If you would like to donate or host a food drive, please contact Christine Sanchez.
Click the flyer below.
For Immediate Release
Buena Park, CA (September 28, 2012) – Giving Children Hope and the City of Buena collaborated to host “Buena Park Tackling Child Hunger”, a food drive to feed over 4,000 students and families on the “We’ve Got Your Back” program.
Over 16,000 pounds of food (17 pallets) were collected, which included food drive items from over 30 Orange County schools.
“Seeing the community come together and participate to help us provide food for these students and families was inspiring and motivating. We would like to especially thank the City of Buena Park for all their support,” says Sean Lawrence, Executive Director of Giving Children Hope.
Buena Park’s City Manager, Jim Vanderpool, encouraged city employees to collect items, offering the winning department a lunch prize. The competition fiercely motivated nine city departments to gather over 4,700 food items. The winners of the challenge, Community Development department, decorated their office with rows and stacks of canned goods, pasta, and cereal boxes.
“Thanks to the efforts of the City of Buena Park and our schools, we are able to get the program up and running and immediately serve over 50% of our program participants,” says Christine Sanchez, Director of the “We’ve Got Your Back” program.
Over 100 Buena Park High School Football players made their presence on Beach Blvd., holding signs and collecting donations from people driving by. Others who participated in the event included Downtown Buena Park, John’s Incredible Pizza and the West Orange County Regional Chamber of Commerce.
For the 2011-2012 school year, there were 42 schools enrolled on the “We’ve Got Your Back” program. Giving Children Hope plans to add at least 15 more schools for the 2012-2013 school year. Food is continuously needed, so if you are interested in hosting a food drive, please contact csanchez@godaid.org for more information. Items most needed are: cereal, rice, canned meat and canned fruits. Please no glass items. Food can be dropped off at Giving Children Hope’s office at 8332 Commonwealth Ave., Buena Park, CA 90621. Monetary and cash donations will be accepted as well.
To view pictures of the event, go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/givingchildrenhope/sets/72157631617556380/with/8022140339/
“We’ve Got Your Back” is a weekend nutrition program created by Giving Children Hope for elementary students in Orange County’s school districts who have been identified as homeless under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Currently, there are over 28,000 children in Orange County’s elementary schools who are identified as homeless.
Giving Children Hope is a faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to alleviating poverty domestically and abroad through disaster relief, health and community development, vocational training and advocacy. For more information, visit www.gchope.org.
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Media Contact:
Cathy Baek
Communications Coordinator
Giving Children Hope
714-523-4454 Ext. 107
www.gchope.org
