Information about Pickering Cares

Monday, February 28, 2011

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.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

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.