Please watch the movie “Wasted: The Story of Food Waste.” You can watch it on Amazon or Netflix. Or, you can "check out" a DVD at our warehouse.
Operations:
• We added every other week distributions in Hastings.
• We added providing snack bags to 145 students at Victory Preparatory School every week.
• We have 11 volunteers signed up to train to take SNAP applications.
• We have begun cooking demonstrations at our Thursday warehouse distributions. Mary Thomas, our Cooking Program Manager, is teaching patrons how to use ingredients we have in abundance that week to prepare delicious, healthy meals.
• Palatka warehouse update: o Beginning 11/15, EPIC-CURE WILL BE a hub for Feeding Northeast Florida, which will deliver a semi-truck full of food every Thursday for the Putnam County agency partners to shop from for free. The video below shows how it works for the one we host on Tuesdays in St. Augustine.
Notes on the graph:
• As of the end of October we have rescued and distributed 2,772,219 pounds of food since we began in May of 2019. So far in 2020, we have processed 2,456,292 of that amount. We provided an average of 55 pounds of food to each of the 6,681 families we served in October at a cost of $2.80 per family.
Awareness:
• Next 20-minute Q&A Facebook Live session is scheduled for Sunday, 11/15 at 5pm EST. The topic will be “Why what we do is important.”
• Evan Fleischer, a Ponte Vedra High School junior who volunteered with us all summer, has started an Epic-Cure Club at school. They have 60 members, many of whom also volunteered with us, already. Evan plans to hold a screening night of “Wasted: The Story of Food Waste” at his house for Club members to promote awareness and action.
Grants & Fundraising:
• Collected the Rotary Grant and purchase of the Refrigerated Truck is scheduled for Tuesday!!!
• Board Member’s $10,000 matching donation challenge results:
-From the Community: $14,205
-From Corporate Sponsors: $0.00
-Total: $24,205!!
• Still in talks with many on how to make the Putnam operations financially sustainable.
• A very generous donor is providing the 50 turkeys requested by AMVETS and VFW to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for their members.
-Why do we have to buy turkeys (for this and the next item below) when we are able to rescue so much food?
-Because we get overstock, not currently in-demand stock.
-So, we will be flooded with hams and turkeys in January and will get very few before then.
• So far, we have a $250 grant from Publix and $2,500 grant from United Way to purchase turkeys for our 11/21 food event in collaboration with We Feed St. Augustine, ReMax and 16 local restaurants (so far). The goal is to provide ready to heat meals, groceries, hygiene products, and Thanksgiving dinner supplies for 1,000 families. ReMax will collect the dry goods for Thanksgiving dinner supplies and will promote donations of $10 to purchase turkeys or $25 to purchase supplies for an entire Thanksgiving dinner. Feeding Northeast Florida is providing a semi-truck full of groceries, Island Doctors is providing 500 boxes of hygiene products and The Garden Produce is providing 500 boxes of mixed produce for the event.
• Donations of a forklift and a powered palate jack promised by Kenworth of Jacksonville.
• Donation of the cost to install a much-needed walk in freezer has been made by Mark Bailey of The Bailey Group.
Sustain U. Cooking Classes:
• Our 3rd cooking class will be a huge event. Hugs Across the County and Murray Middle School reached out to us about the possibility of getting Thanksgiving dinners packaged in individual servings for 600 students and their families. Chef Brian is going to make that the next cooking class. I think after they prepare 50 turkeys and mashed potatoes, dressing and gravy in 600 serving quantities, they will be Thanksgiving dinner experts by the end of that class.
Anyone who wishes to see Epic-Cure’s financial statements need only ask.
• Please email your requests to Sunny Mulford: sunny.mulford@epic-cure.org
Notes:
• We are providing snack packs for students at one new school