DONATIONS FOR THANKSGIVING
Hope 7 Food Pantry distributes food baskets for Thanksgiving
TROY, N.Y. – Officials and volunteers at Hope 7 Food Pantry were hard at work in distributing food baskets to more than 130 families in need at the Pawling Avenue United Methodist Church on Tuesday.
Community volunteers, the Columbia high school wrestling team and Rensselaer County Legislatorelect Carole Weaver were on hand to help out.
The food pantry serves about 220 families a month and the need continues to grow.
“We’re up to 130 families for Thanksgiving,” Food Pantry Coordinator, Sherri Capparello said of the families being helped. “We have produce from Capital Roots and we got all of our canned veggies from Hannaford, a check from McElligott to help buy food, rolls, and bread from Freihofer’s and Bimbo Bakery.”
“In the boxes, we have all the canned veggies, green beans, peas, corn, rolls, bread, stuffing, cranberry sauce, brown sugar for sweet potatoes, apple and pumpkin pies,” Capparello added of the assortment of Thanksgiving foods.
“Vincenza Zucaro’s did a fundraiser ,which went to gift cards for turkeys. We don’t have actual refrigeration, so we do gift cards for turkeys,” Executive Director of Hope 7, Samantha Adkisson said of the donations.
The food pantry serves the east side of Troy, Wyn-
antskill, Petersburgh, and parts of North Greenbush. Hope 7 also offers youth programs and care for snow days and holidays, accord- ing to Adkisson.
“Going forward, we have our holiday shop coming up with 130 families who are going to be sponsored for the holidays and people who come in after we’re filled can come into the holiday shop and pick out unopened brand new toys for their children. Any donations would have to be here by December 14,” Adkisson said of their toy donation effort.
“We still need sponsors for 28 of our families of the 130,” Capparello added of the needed support.
Volunteers said they enjoy being able to give back to the community and help families during the holidays and throughout the year.
“I started in 2010 on Thanksgiving and started volunteering in 2011. My ex- perience has grown, when I first started, we had 80 families a month and now we have 225, so the need has gotten greater and we have more volunteers and the staff and volunteers at Hope 7 are the best people to work with. It’s a very fulfilling place,” volunteer Bonnie Walsh said of her volunteer experience.
Capparello also said the Pawling United Methodist Church will have a Thanksgiving dinner at 2:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving if people need somewhere to go.