Friends Feeding Families exceeds goal!
Click here to view photos from some of our parties!
Last summer, as the recession dragged on, Catholic Charities began planning its fall Friends Feeding Families Brown Bag Campaign. The development team set a goal to raise $350,000 from 2,250 donors by the end of December 2009.
By year's end, friends and supporters of Catholic Charities donated a total of $590,000 and thousands of bags of groceries! Parties and donated bags of food arrived from came from various locations from Boston to Natick, Salem to Brockton, and Lowell to Lynn. And the contributions just keep coming!
The Brown Bag Parties were everywhere this fall – in homes, in businesses, in schools – Catholic Charities brown bags were being filled with much-needed supplies for our food pantries in Boston, Brockton, Natick, and Lowell. During the campaign, our friends across the Eastern Massachusetts hosted 25 parties which collected
$4,245 in grocery store gift cards, $4,415 in contributions, and more than 1,500 bags of groceries.
A few highlights:
Catholic Charities kicked off the Campaign with a Brown Bag Open House at its new offices on Sleeper Street. Guests who stopped by to see the new space dropped off 30 bags of groceries and $1,500 worth of gift cards. Frank Mahoney hosted a pizza party at Ernst & Young on October 13 and raised $1,000 for the campaign.
The students at Sacred Heart High School in Kingston, MA collected 80 bags of food at their fall coffeehouse. They were followed by the students of Trinity Catholic Academy in Brockton who filled 47 bags for Catholic Charities just in time for Christmas.
The folks at UHY Advisors, N.E. held a brown bag party in conjunction with their annual Thanksgiving luncheon and filled a whopping 100 brown bags. WBUR also held a brown bag party which logged in 90 bags - from a staff numbering 100. WBUR General Manager Paul La Camera also hosted a brown bag party in his home and added 30 more bags to Charities' pantry shelves.
A sincere thank you to the dozens of generous folks who hosted brown bag parties!
Martha J. Barrett
Boston Securities Traders Association
The Bostonian Group
The Brown School, Somerville
Larry and Lisa Cahill
Catholic Charities Young Professionals
Jed Donahue
Ernst & Young
Greater Lowell Chamber of Commerce
Paul and Mimi La Camera
Lincoln Property Company
Mary Kenney and Family
Massachusetts State Council - Knights of Columbus
The Mayo Group
Maureen Creaton Murray
Ellen Osborne-Smith
Pope John Paul II Catholic Academy – Afterschool Program
Residents at Avalon Hills, Lexington, MA
Trinity Catholic Academy, Brockton
UHY Advisors, N.E. LLC
United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley
WBUR
A special thank you to the our generous sponsors!
