In an expansion of our regular Sponsor A Family program, Family-to-Family has linked up 90 refugee families who are recent arrivals to the U.S. with monthly sponsors. The program, launched in 2017, is an effort to help refugee families that are already in the U.S. but can’t yet support themselves. Each sponsored family is provided with a monthly grocery gift card enabling them to purchase basic grocery staples at a grocery store in their neighborhood. Recommended to our program by several national refugee resettlement agencies located in the New York City and upstate New York area, these families – fleeing violence, war and persecution – have emigrated from more than 20 countries – including Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, China, Cuba, El Salvador, Eritrea, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mexico, Peru, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Somalia, and Ukraine. Sponsors provide a monthly donation to Family-to-Family which allow us to purchase the grocery gift cards, and can also send “their” family other basic essentials through the mail. Our goal is to help these individuals and families, who have already endured so much, feel welcome and secure in their new country. Learn more here.
Visa employees in San Francisco came together in late August and assembled an impressive 88 Family-to-Family Birthdays in a Box (in this case bags) for 88 children in need. The boxes, each filled with everything needed for one child to have a birthday party (cake, icing, decorations, a gift, etc.), were delivered to the poverty outreach organization Hamilton Families, also in San Francisco, where they’ll be given to low income children in their transitional housing and shelter programs.
As we did during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Family-to-Family launched a Sponsor A Family program for victims of Hurricane Harvey, Irma and Maria. We linked with several on-the-ground organizations that help families in need; in Houston: The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston, Communities in Schools, and Firestarter; in Florida: The Boys & Girls Club of Collier County and Jesus Loves You Outreach Ministries; and in Puerto Rico: the Jewish Community Center of Puerto Rico. These organizations continue to refer families that lost basic household items in the hurricanes to our program, and we’re linking those families with donor families. Donors are shopping and sending “their” Harvey or Irma family many of the items they lost in the flooding… things like bedding, towels, kitchen items and more. Donors are donating funds so household items can be purchased locally for Hurricane Maria victims. Click here to read a article about our hurricane sponsorship program in the Westchester County Business Journal. Or click here to learn more about joining as a sponsor.
When our Orlando community partner Pauline Jackson asked for help with her annual school supplies drive, we reached out to our donors. And you responded overwhelmingly! Pauline held her giveaway “Jamboree” on August 11th, and was able to provide filled backpacks to a record 627 local children in need. She was also able to give out 225 pairs of new shoes, and gave the first 160 families to arrive a basket of food as well. Pauline wrote: “The kids had a blast! We had bounce houses, free hot-dogs, pizza and drinks. Please tell everyone thank you so much for helping to make this back to school outreach the most successful one we have ever had.”
As part of a major community service effort in December and January, 190 employees from WebMD in several U.S. cities took part in F-to-F’s “Bath Pack” project, putting together an impressive 950 personal care item kits for struggling families in need. 120 employees in Indianapolis (Indiana) and another 70 in Portland (Oregon) assembled the kits, which each included shampoo, soap, toothpaste, a toothbrush, deodorant, a comb and a list of WebMD wellness tips. The hygiene products for the kits were donated by High Ridge Brands, MetLife Dental Division, Hillsboro Implants & Periodontics, WebMD Cares and SC Johnson.
Completed “bath packs” were delivered to local social service organizations.
In addition, WebMD employees volunteered at the Portland Rescue Mission to serve breakfast to over 150 homeless, where they distributed more of the personal care item kits.
Catherine Daniel, a Senior Manager of Public Relations for WebMD, explained that the project, “was an opportunity for WebMD to provide those in need with the everyday tools to maintain their hygiene, thus encouraging overall mental and physical health and wellness.”
A group of employee “angels” at Dannon in White Plains, N.Y. put together a whopping 270 “dinners in a bag” for impoverished local families over the holiday season. Using Family-to-Family’s “Let’s Do Dinner!” project as a template, Dannon chefs provided recipes for healthy dinners to Dannon employees, who then shopped for the recipe ingredients and assembled the bags during several half-hour “meal packing competitions.”
A group of employee “angels” at Dannon in White Plains, N.Y. put together a whopping 270 “dinners in a bag” for impoverished local families over the holiday season. Using Family-to-Family’s “Let’s Do Dinner!” project as a template, Dannon chefs provided recipes for healthy dinners to Dannon employees, who then shopped for the recipe ingredients and assembled the ingredients into bags during several half-hour “meal packing competitions.” Each bag contained all ingredients needed for a full meal for a family of five, plus a copy of the printed recipe. The bags were delivered to six Westchester County, N.Y. nonprofits that work with families in need (all affiliated with the social services agency Westhab, Inc.), enabling local families to cook a healthy dinner meal from a new recipe!
