Bruce Randolph Students in Action

Last year marked the first annual Students in Action: Continuing the Legacy day of service for high school students at Bruce Randolph School. This year, the tradition of service continued.  Last Friday, a total of 750 students, teachers, staff members, and community volunteers went out into Denver and provided approximately 3,400 volunteer hours.  FBR was blessed with 80 volunteers as a result of this initiative!

Some of the services students provided included visiting with military veterans at the VA Hospital, putting together food baskets here at Food Bank of the Rockies, helping with community gardens with the GrowHaus and the Urban Farm at Stapleton, park clean-up in conjunction with Denver Parks and Recreation, decorating meal bags for terminally ill patients with Project Angel Heart, and many others. 13 other high schools in the Denver community participated in their own small scale service projects on this day.  

Jennifer Esquivel, a junior at Bruce Randolph, had this to say about the service day, "The reason why I volunteer is because I like to help others. Whenever I have the chance to volunteer I take it because at the end of the day I know I have accomplished something big. Service is a very important thing at Bruce Randolph School because we like to show how much we care about our community. The Students in Action day of service at our school gives us the opportunity to help people and organizations in our neighborhood. After the service day, I will continue to be involved in service by helping my community and by volunteering at places that need my help the most."

We were thrilled to be a part of this awesome day of service!  Thanks so very much to Bruce Randolph School for your dedication to giving back to your community.

VOTE, VOTE, VOTE

FRIDAY IS VOTING DAY!!!!!!!


One in seven Coloradans are deemed food insecure, not knowing where their next meal will come from. That equals over 730,000 Coloradans.


Helping the hungry in the Denver area is as easy as logging onto Facebook and voting!


As part of Walmart's "Fighting Hunger Together" initiative, the company has been holding a Facebook campaign in April where you can go onto their Facebook site at www.facebook.com/walmartand vote for one of 200 communities, hardest hit by unemployment. Denver is one of the communities on the list! One community will receive $1 million to fight hunger and 20 other communities will each receive $50,000.


We want Denver area food banks, FBR included, to receive some of this money and support. So we're asking everyone in Denver to go on the site this Friday, April 27, and vote for Denver! You can vote every day until April 30 -- but we're asking you to at least vote on Friday! Let's help our Denver area food banks win a portion of these funds!


You can go right to the Denver voting page at: http://apps.facebook.com/walmartfighthunger/profile/1861


THANKS!!!!

A Trip to Yuma Provides....

Last week we took a trip to Yuma to meet the generous folks at CHS.  Cooperatively, the M&M Cooperative, Grainland Cooperative and United Plains Cooperative collected an outstanding total of $23,729.52 for Food Bank of the Rockies in their Harvest for Hunger Campaign.  In just 16 days, CHS employees, customers and partners collectively raised the equivalent of 2.45 million meals, including 652,000 pounds of canned and fresh foods and over $360,000 in cash and grain for FBR and a host of other hunger relief organizations.  Not only did this surpass their goal for 2012, it was 450,000 meals more than were collected in last year's drive. 

M&M cooperative is a business unit of CHS Inc., the nation's leading cooperative, owned by farmers, ranchers and co-ops across the United States.  Held March 1-16, the CHS Harvest for Hunger food and fund drive harnessed the power of CHS retail locations to help address America's growing hunger problem.  THANKS to all those involved in this outstanding gift!  Your efforts will provide 94,918 meals through Food Bank of the Rockies.  We appreciate your efforts so very much and hope to continue this wonderful partnership for years to come!

What Would We Do Without Our Corporate Groups?

It's Friday - the last day of National Volunteer Week.  We have so thoroughly enjoyed sharing our passion for our volunteers with you this week.  While we recognize these members of our food bank family year round, this is just an added bonus to be able to honor their work during a nationally recognized week. 

Today we would like to close out by highlighting our outstanding corporate group volunteers.  We can't even count the number of corporations who grace us with their smiles, energy and kindness day in and day out.  They join us ranging from large groups (50+) or small groups of 5.  These folks walk in ready to work and walk out with smiles.  It's a team building experience to volunteer at FBR and we love that corporations recognize the importance of encouraging their staff to give of their time.  See below for a recent staff volunteer day from our friends and partners at the Aurora Medical Center.  These awesome Coloradans have chosen FBR as their charity partner for 2012 and have already made such an enormous impact on hunger in Colorado.  We're proud to highlight them as an example of what one corporation/organization can do when they unite their staff in giving back to their community!    THANKS to all our corporate groups.  We so appreciate all you do.

Recognizing our Board and Committee Volunteers!

It's day #4 of National Volunteer Week and we're excited to give recognition to all of our volunteer board and committee members. These individuals come to us with diverse skills and backgrounds which help guide our organization . They attend meetings, voice their opinions and concerns and gift us with wisdom, understanding, leadership along with so much more. Please meet Amy Diaz, our current Board Chair and a valued member of the FBR family. THANKS to all our board and committee members for all you do!
 

We THANK our Regular Volunteer Groups!

On Day #3 of National Volunteer Week we would like to highlight our regular volunteer groups!  We recently visited with Debbie, who works for Lockheed Martin and brings us a group of 18 co-workers each and every month.  In addition, she has rallied her personal friends to add to her numbers.  In addition, Lockheed organizes fund and food drives on our behalf each year.  Debbie's passion for volunteering and her passion for Food Bank of the Rockies and our mission is heartwarming and contagious.  It's amazing to us the impact one individual can have in making a difference in our community.  Debbie and her group are just one wonderful example out of hundreds.  Check out what Debbie has to say...you just might find yourself signing up to volunteer today!

Recognizing our GROUP Volunteers!

We've already talked about how vital volunteers are to our mission here at FBR.  Bob is an example of the individuals and families who dedicate their time to helping us get the job done at our Denver warehouse. 

On Day #2 of National Volunteer Week, we'd like to showcase our group volunteers!  These folks join us from churches, youth groups, non-profits, schools, political offices, sororities, social groups...the list goes on and on.  Whether they come once or once per month, we rely on groups to get food sorted, cleaned, organized, orders pulled and loaded, files sorted, documents shredded, mailings posted, projects completed, kitchen orders cooked, dishes washed, floors mopped...again, the list goes on and on.  We interviewed a volunteer from The Junior League (see below) as an example of a fantastic volunteer group. 

THANKS to all our wonderful group volunteers!  We greatly appreciate your support!