Aid for Friends honors churches and volunteers
BUChS COUNTY -A Doylestown man and several Bucks County churches were honored Dec. 8 for their long-standing support of Aid For Friends, a nonprofit charity that provides free home-cooked meals and friendly visits to frail elderly and disabled shut-ins who are unable to shop or cook for themselves and who have no one else to do these tasks for them.
Aid For Friends hosted a ChristmasLHanukkah Open House for the donors and volunteers as a thank you for their service at its outreach center in Northeast Philadelphia. The program included presentation of Rita Ungaro-Schiavone awards to outstanding individuals and churches that have provided volunteer services for many years. The award is named for the founder of Aid For Friends, who is now chairman of the board of the 38-yearold charity.
The following churches in Bucks County were honored: North and Southampton Reformed Church in Churchville; St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Yardley and St. Andrew Roman Catholic Church in Newtown. According to Aid For Friends, these three churches have prepared and donated 28,347 meals this year alone.
Also honored was Al Clougherty of Doylestown, who has served as a volunteer for the past 22 years, visiting many shut-ins in Bucks County. For the past 17 years he has served as the regional coordinator of Central Bucks County. fn this volunteer position, he accepted referrals of needy homebound, made onsite visits and then assigned a visitor volunteer to each shut-in. When he was unable to find a suitable visitor volunteer, he just added the new shut-in to the ones he visited, said Aid For Friends spokesperson.
The first Bucks County church to receive the Rita Ungaro-Schiavone award was St. fgnatius of Antioch Catholic Church in Yardley, who over the years has prepared more meals than any other church or organization in the fivecounty area served by Aid For Friends.
Aid For Friends also praised Peace Baxter of Yardley, who has volunteered as the coordinator for St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Yardley for more than 22 years. She formed a committee at her church to raise money to help fund the construction of a new production kitchen at the outreach center. This kitchen is used for groups preparing dinners for the agency’s shut-ins.
“Without the generosity of thousands of volunteers and donors over the years, Aid for Friends would not have been able to provide the companionship of friendly visitors and home cooked meals our shut-in clientLfriends need for their daily sustenance,” said Ungaro-Schiavone. “The staff of Aid for Friends is grateful for those who have chosen to give of themselves in service to their needy neighbors.”