Situated next door to the town where Family-to-Family started, Dobbs Ferry is a small New York village of 11,000 people that sits alongside the Hudson River, just north of New York City.

While much of Dobbs Ferry is a well-to-do bedroom suburb of Manhattan, about 600 moms, dads, kids, and seniors here live in profound poverty.

Local residents in the area sign up with us to provide Stop & Shop grocery gift cards for these Dobbs families in need, either by making a monthly donation to Family-to-Family that we use to purchase a grocery card, or by buying it themselves and dropping it at our office. Cards are distributed to the families each month through SPRING Community Partners, our Dobbs Ferry partner organization.

Unlike in the other communities served by F-to-F, in Dobbs Ferry the names of both the donors and the families in need are kept anonymous, to respect everyone’s privacy, since they may know each other. Each family in need is identified only by an alphabet letter. That means, for example, a sponsor will purchase a grocery gift card and put it in an envelope labeled “For Family S.”

And although we keep it anonymous, families are still sometimes finding a way to communicate… by sending a card or note with no names.

Yes, I’d like to sponsor a family!