Welcome to the Teach A Person to Fish Society’s August Newsletter. We hope you’ve been soaking up some sun and enjoying a bountiful home garden harvest. Remember, if you find yourself with more home produce than you anticipated locally, let us know! Sharing your garden goodness with neighbors is one of the greatest joys in life. And small acts of joy can make a big difference! In the month of July, our volunteers received $9971 worth of dry goods and produce, supplemented this with donations of our own, and crafted these ingredients into $14,677 worth of donations, bringing the July grand total to 2,616 servings of nutritious and delicious ready-to-eat meals for neighbors in need. Thank you all for your help and donations! Together we are growing change, one home grown tomato at a time!

Food banks across the country are reporting greater demands for food assistance than what they saw even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Community food pantries were already stretched thin from years of rising food costs and growing food insecurity when they started bracing for price hikes and food shortages under the Trump administration’s recent legislation. 

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provides roughly nine meals for every one meal provided by a food pantry. In the measures passed by Congress, federal funding for SNAP will plummet by $186 billion through 2034, that’s about 20%.SNAP is a vital lifeline that keeps more than 41 million Americans, or 12 percent of the population, from going hungry.

More than 13 million recipients are children.

This is an imminent crisis for millions of families who rely on food stamps to buy groceries they couldn’t otherwise afford, and places enormous strain on food banks that support the most vulnerable Americans.

We are facing a national hunger crisis, and your support is more critical now than ever. If you’re able, please consider making a donation today. Your generosity can help ensure that no child, senior, or struggling family is left without the food they need. Together, we can help bridge the gap and bring relief to those hit hardest.

Volunteer Spotlight

Let’s hear it for the boys! Kent McCullough, husband of our Clearinghouse for Clearing Housesfriend Julie, has been volunteering over the last six months, working with Cass to install a “Cool Room” (our Delaware equivalent to a Root Cellar), along with the supporting Solar Array that keeps it cool. His service as a now-retired “NASA Science Instrument Technician” at the Goddard Space Center in Maryland has been invaluable to this installation effort. This is our last sub-project from the American Rescue Plan Grant that we received in 2021. Thanks for all your help, Kent!

The Food Bank of Delaware’s Milford location is home to a 3.5 acre community garden featuring green houses, raised beds, and rows of cover crops, utilizing organic and sustainable farming methods, as well as seedling propagation for planting, raising money for their annual spring plant sale, and donating to non-profit partners. What a powerful example of what’s possible!

Take a look inside with their recent feature on
ABC’s Live Green segment on WMDT.com. 

Community Living, Community Thriving

A Message from our Executive Director, Teresa Ripley

 

As many of you may know, one of our long-term goals at the outset of Teach a Person to Fish operations in 2020 was to build an intentional community in Delaware where like-minded people would be able to pursue a sustainable lifestyle. Since then, we have explored a number of opportunities to do so, but it became increasingly clear to us that Delaware was not the place for us to realize this goal because of many factors. The ever-increasing cost of living in Delaware is not news to anyone who lives here and is the primary reason for us looking elsewhere. 

Therefore, we are happy to announce that we have found the community with which to join forces. Rah Rah Village in Weathersfield, Vermont (https://www.rahrahcommunity.org/) is a well-established community of cooperative & sustainability-minded folks like us, that is just breathtakingly beautiful! Cass & I reached out to the founders, Dave & Dani Bonta earlier this year, visited over the 4th of July week, and we are confident that we can continue our TAPTF work in both places (Vermont in the summers, Rehoboth in the winters – who doesn’t dream of escaping Rehoboth when they are sitting in summer Route 1 traffic!)

We are working on positioning our young employees to carry on in our absence over the summers, and ask for patience from our partners while they come up to speed. You might see some much younger enthusiastic faces doing the rounds!

As always we would love to welcome new volunteers to our kitchen prep and delivery team here in Rehoboth. If you have been looking for a way to make a lasting impact on your community, now is the time when your help is needed most! Visit our website and join us today, all ages and skills are welcome.

Visit our Volunteers Page for more information on how you can become involved today!