Thank you for helping the Urbandale Food Pantry serve our community!
On January 21, 2013, Martin Luther King Day, people all around the Des Moines metro area donated approximately 1674 items, including over 191 knitted items, 971 personal care items, and 612 food items for the Urbandale Food Pantry to distribute. They also colored 16 cards of hope to be given to Pantry recipients, and signed 5 pledges for action during the rest of the year. Financial contributions for the Pantry totaled $733.
From 2pm (when our event ended) to 9pm, the Library’s Food for Fines program brought in an additional 708 items (682 food, 22 personal care, & 4 hats/scarves)! That brings the combined total of items collected to: 2,382! Thank you to the Library for its continued collaboration on this Day of Service!
From 9am to 2pm, more than 140 participants and volunteers donated items, knitted on site, pledged action, colored, watched the inauguration, or helped staff the event by serving at the front tables, counting and sorting items, packing and loading items, unloading at the Pantry, and more. The volunteers staffing the event included two AmeriCorps volunteers with the Red Cross, two 17-year-old foreign exchange students from Indonesia, two Urbandale Food Pantry volunteers, three community volunteers, and a large group of managers from area Starbucks.
Thank you for supporting our community and making the Martin Luther King National Day of Service a day ON, not a day off!
*** Special thanks to the Urbandale Public Library for providing space for this event every year and for its “Food for Fines” program that collects additional items for the Urbandale Food Pantry after this event ends for the day. ***