We Are Prep-aring The Feast: The YouGiveGoods Drive Items Are Being Sorted!

This week, Preppers volunteered to assemble the many donations from our incredibly successful YouGiveGoods drive.

Generous individuals from all over the country - including California, New Mexico, North Carolina, Florida, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and at least 208 Pennsylvanians - donated over $30,000 worth of food to the Prep's week-long online drive - an event that broke records and set the digital world on fire!

We will continue to send updates about the drive, and we plan to have a "Food Rally" after school on Friday, November 20th - starting at around 2:30 p.m.  At the time we will assemble the baskets and listen to some speakers from the community talk about hunger in Philadelphia and the Prep community's efforts to end it.

Alumni Mothers Donate Much Needed Soap to Men's Shelter

The Alumni Mothers' had quite the spread!

 Last Thursday, November 5th, the Alumni Mothers' met and donated 109.8 pounds of soap.  On Saturday, this soap was donated to Our Brother's Place, a men's shelter that is run by the Bethesda Project.  There are 149 beds in the shelter, but those in need can also use the showers there during the day.  Apparently supplies had run particularly low, and these bars will be cut into pieces in order to guarantee efficient use for many homeless men.

The Prep Donates Food, Supplies to St. Francis Inn

Preppers Aaron Sykes, Alim Kamara, Connor Kramer, and Dave Bowdler pose with Barbara Salapek from St. Francis Inn. 

 On Monday afternoon, the Prep donated 757 pounds of food, 7 bags of clothes, and 10 sleeping bags to St. Francis Inn.  The food, clothing, and sleeping bags had been collected piecemeal through various generous sources.  Thank you to those who contributed!

Pillow Fight: Prep Donates over 80 pillows to the Homeless Shelter

Delivering the pillows on October 1, 2015 to Our Brother's Place, From Left to Right: two recipients of the pillows, Brendan Heenan, '16, Pat Gillespie, '16, and Mr. Vaccaro. 

Yesterday, the Hurtado Food Pantry President Pat Gillespie, '16, Vice President Brendan Heenan, '16, and Moderator Mr. Leo Vaccaro, '05, delivered over 80 pillows to "Our Brother's Place," an emergency shelter run by the housing-first organization, the Bethesda Project.

Men staying at "Our Brother's Place," located at 907 Hamilton Street, came out to help unload the boxes of pillows and they transported them upstairs.  Although there are 149 men who sleep in "Our Brother's Place" on any given day, there are not permanent beds for all of the men, so the Prep was only asked to donate 80 pillows to be used on the 77 permanent beds that are kept on the shelter's second floor.  There are also 72 cots downstairs, which unfortunately lack the storage area to allow for pillows.

The boxes of pillows outside of "Our Brother's Place"

Due to the incredibly generous response from the Prep community, and through the use of the website YouGiveGoods.com, Hurtado' request for 80 pillows was met, not within a few days, but within a matter of hours!  In addition to the pillows, a great number of pillow cases were also delivered.

Hurtado delivers 3,000 pounds of food this month

Students from the sleep-out on Friday brave the weather and load a Prep van full of food.

March went out like a lion at the Prep.

Last Friday, March 20th, volunteers at the Prep's homeless sleep-out donated 1,115 pounds to North Philadelphia's Mander Recreational facility.  Today, Thursday March 26, the Hurtado team donated over 600 pounds to St. Francis Inn and My Brother's House, which is part of the Bethesda Project.  

Adding up the month's earlier donations (as well as over 30 pounds of candy that were collected for Mission and Ministry), the Hurtado food pantry removed approximately 3,000 pounds of food from its shelves this month.

On March 19th, Noelle Dames, the Community Educator for the Coalition Against Hunger, visited the Hurtado Food Pantry and was impressed by our community's efforts to fight hunger.

The Coalition Against Hunger is an incredible organization that keeps data on hundreds of pantries in their Food Pantry Network, and advocates for the hungry in our community.  They recently reported that "In Philadelphia alone, the number of people relying on food pantries has more than doubled over the past five years. More than one-third of them are children."

Dames told us that she is "so impressed with the ongoing generosity of the Prep community" and hopes that some students might be interested in participating in their Hunger Walk on April 11.

"Stroehmann Bakeries is sponsoring a High School Challenge - they will award two high schools with the highest number of run registrants a cash prize for their school. See details via the link: http://www.hungercoalition.org/hungerwalk/stroehmann-high-school-challenge"

Volunteers and participants are still needed for this event!  Contact Evan Mazmanian for more information.

On Thursday March 19th Preppers donated 337 pounds of healthy food  ... and 31 pounds of Easter Candy!

Preppers Evan Mazmanian, '15, and Pat Gillespie, '16, met with Noelle Dames from the Coalition Against Hunger

Preppers Paul Browne, Andrew Devany, and Jimmy Hegarty (all class from the class of 2017) brave the snow to deliver over 1,000 pounds of food in a packed Prep van.

Brendan Heenan, '16, Pete Ramirez, '17, and Pat Gillespie, '16, pack food for St. Francis Inn and My Brother's House. 

Pat Gillespie, '16 slides food down to St. Francis Inn Team Member Kevin Cilano.

Special thanks to those members of the Prep community who donated goods, and those who donated their time including Sophomores Paul Browne, Ronald Cavalier, Andrew Devany, Pat Dever, Jimmy Hegarty, John Kromchad, Chris Mayer, James McGinnis, Liam Pie, William Ryan, Jack Strohman, Pete Ramirez; Juniors Brendan Heenan, Pat Gillespie, and Senior Evan Mazmanian.  Also thank you to Mr. Rob Cermignano, '10, Sam Deitch, Jose Gonzalez, Sonia Nelson.

The Prep donated 1100 Pounds of Food this Week

Above: Junior Chris Montie pushes a cart of food outside of the Prep.

On Monday, Preppers Chris Montie, '16, Pat Gillespie, '16, Brendan Heenan, '16, and Ricky Zheng, '18 shipped out 1100 pounds of food from the Hurtado Food pantry.  Approximately 1051 pounds of food were taken to St. Peter the Apostle, and 120 pounds of apples (which had been donated by the mother's club) were taken to Our Brother's House, an emergency shelter in North Philadelphia, run by the Bethesda Project, that provides shelter to 150 homeless men.

Above: Pat Gillespie, '16, navigates.

Above: Staging area in the Prep's iconic foyer.

Above: During this adventure, we were actually held up by the presence of clowns in North Philadelphia.  Photo courtesy of Pat Gillespie.

The Prep donates Tea, Sugar, and Diapers to St. Francis Inn

Children play outside of the St. Francis Inn Soup Kitchen on Hagert Street in Kensington, during the Inn's popular summer block party.  The Prep donated 67 pounds of diapers to the Inn this month.  This picture is from the Inn's website.

Organizing the pantry and preparing for delivery.

     Faculty, students, parents, alumni and staff of the Prep donated hundreds of pounds of food and supplies to the Hurtado Food Pantry last week, much of which was in turn loaded up on to a Prep van and donated to St. Francis Inn.

     Depending on the time of the month, St. Francis Inn serves upwards of 600 meals per day (particularly on the days when they serve both breakfast and dinner).  During the winter, hot tea is brewed and consumed there in great quantities.

     When asked about the requested diapers, Karen Pushaw (a veteran full-timer at the Inn) explained that "We have more than 200 parents/guardians listed in the book,* whom we have served in the past year.  Some have more than one child.  Most are from the neighborhood [Kensington]; many do not eat at the Inn regularly, but just come for diapers & other baby needs."

   Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that "Philadelphia's poverty rate did slip a tad from 26.9 percent to 26.3 percent between 2012 and 2013" and that "The Children's Defense Fund says by investing an additional 2 percent of the federal budget into existing programs and policies, the nation could reduce child poverty by 60 percent and lift 6.6 million children out of poverty."

From Left to Right: Sophomore Charles Whitman, Junion Pat Gillespie, Senior Evan Mazmanian, and Junior Brendan Heenan loading the van with supplies.

*St.  Francis Inn maintains a binder, containing the details of families who have children in need, and how often they receive resources from the Inn.

The Prep Distributes Socks Across Philadelphia

Getting Ready to make the deliveries (Photo credit: Frank Raffa)

As you may have read in December's blog entry, the Prep donated socks to the Bethesda Project and St. Francis Inn.  We also received a huge donation from Michael Foley, who happens to be the President of SockGuy: http://www.sockguy.com/  

On Thursday, February 12, 2015, we donated all of the socks, some 800 pairs.

This set of socks were distributed to these four places:

• Face to Face in Germantown (located at St. Vincent de Paul RCC, E. Price Street)
• St. Columba, a residence for 25 men run by Project Home.
• The Benjamin Franklin Parkway (see below)
• The Free Library of Philadelphia (the main branch) - a noted hangout for Philadelphia's homeless community (as can be seen in this article).

Special thanks to Frank Raffa, who was a great co-pilot, Jonathan Juckett of Project Home, and especially to Face to Face Director of Development Susan O’Hagan Marley.

On the Parkway

Outside St. Columba, a 'safe haven' of Project Home