Pickering Cares 2011 - The last 12 days

   All the planning and preparing now shifts into volunteers carrying out the two major tasks:
       1. Deliver a Door Handle Flyer to the 25,000 single family homes in Pickering that are south of Finch
       2. Come back May 14th and pick up the food that people put out for the food banks.

   We at Pickering Cares have again been amazed by the cooperation of the community. There are 7 of the churches, scouts pathfinders, youth groups and community volunteers making a contribution this year. We trust that by Saturday night, May 7th, all the flyers will have been delivered.

    Then Saturday, May 14th, we need everybody possible to help us collect, sort, pack and deliver the approximately 10 tons of food the citizens of Pickering will donate. Here are the details:

     Amberlea Presbyterian Church - 1820 Whites Road - 9AM

     We need drivers and runners. We will have certificates available for High School Volunteer Hours.

      When many hands work together we can accomplish much and make a huge difference to those families that need it the most this summer.

      Thank you in advance for your help.

This Week @ Pickering Cares April 14th

    Activity in our teams continues to grow each week. It is exciting to see each step of the project unfold. Our flyers have been ordered from the printer. Our labels are prepared for each of the boxes we will pack after the food is sorted. Snacks and coffee for our team meetings and events are in the works. Now we need to tell everyone in Pickering about the Food Drive and the opportunity to join in the fun as a volunteer. Even though churches and scouting groups partner with us, and even though we attracted neighbourhood volunteers and families of volunteers, this year we are going to 10,000 more houses and we need all hands on deck.

    So check our schedule and send us an email and we will make sure you can share in both making a real difference in our community and having some fun.

Email us with questions or to volunteer: PickeringCaresVolunteer@gmail.com

Volunteer Hours Certificates for HIgh School Kids available for all events on schedule.

This week @ Pickering Cares

Well, today we and our Food Bank partners met with Mayor Ryan. It seems this meeting is the formal kickoff for the Pickering Cares project each year. He again was a great encouragement and signed up to be one of our volunteers on May 14th for the food collection.

We continue to sign up community partners with 3 churches now on board for this year and 3 in process. So, we are well under way. We will be providing the email for individual volunteers to connect with us. (We do provide volunteer hours records for High School students.)

Here is a photo of our food intake station at last year's event.

This Week @ Pickering Cares

    So far this week we have had another church commit to partnering with us. And tomorrow I meet with another. Our goal is to have at least 6 of the 20 or so churches in Pickering on board. Many hands will make light work.

    Our next area to invest in will be to attract some local sponsorship. It takes about $4,000 to do this size of project. Last year some individuals who felt led of the Lord to encourage this endeavour, covered all of our costs. This year, we are trusting God that the business community will contribute as well as individuals.

    I look forward to reporting again in a week.



   Fred

This Week @ Pickering Cares

We are ramping up for 2011 Pickering Cares. We accomplished some important things so far. Here is a quick summary.

1. The Pickering Firefighters are back on board as a place where those who can't put there food our on May 14th, can drop it off instead.

2. Pickering Pentecostal Church is back and promising to have a bigger team.

3. We are meeting with the Mayor of Pickering March 29th to line up the city's support and electronic signs. (Also to re-sign Mayor Ryan as a volunteer.)

Keep posted for our progress as we approach our May campaign.

Our 2011 Goals

     Last year we started Pickering Cares. We sensed a real need in the community for a major food drive at a non-traditional time. There tends to be strong focus on food banks at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We felt, and had confirmed to us by the food banks, that stocking up for the needs of families in the summer was just as important.
    With the help of almost everyone at Amberlea Church as well as St. Pauls - on - the - Hill Anglican,  Pickering  Pentecostal,  Bayfair Baptist, Hope Community Church, our Scouting and Guide troop and a bunch of other volunteers including the Mayor of Pickering, we were able to accomplish a major door to door food drive covering a major portion of Pickering. Over 5 tons of food were collected.
    This year, we hope to cover all of urban Pickering. This means we will need more partners and more volunteers. It is an important initiative and our goal is to communicate it well. Please help us spread the word. We will have our volunteer desk in operation later this month. Please set aside the two important dates: May 7th and May 14th as we will be distributing almost 20,000 door knocker type flyers and going back to pick up, hopefully, 10 tons of food.
   The two major food banks that service the needs of Pickering (and Ajax) are worthy of our continued support. Many hands will make light work. We can share hope with many families that are going through rough times.

Pickering Cares 2011

The time has come to start planning for Pickering Cares 2011. Our team leaders will gather Thursday, February 24th to finalize the high level plan with teams then ready to work on the details. The major dates for 2011 are as follows:
 - Distribution of the Door Knockers  -  Week of May 7th
 - Pickup and sorting the food          - Saturday, May 14th

There are opportunities for all of the volunteers from 2010 and many more as we expand the drive to all of urban Pickering. The information for the volunteer coordinator will be announced soon. We look forward to the community pulling together once more to accomplish this important project that benefits people of genuine need in our community.