Welcome

Irondequoit Community Cupboard, Inc.

The Irondequoit Community Cupboard, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization designed to meet a variety of needs for families and individuals in the Town of Irondequoit, NY.

Mission Statement

“To provide emergency assistance to Irondequoit residents with dignity, kindness and without prejudice.”

Vision

"To raise awareness of the presence and impact of hunger and poverty in our community. We envision a community where all people share resources to ensure that residents’ basic needs are met in times of limited resources.

We advocate for and reach out to those in need and try to influence public policy so that every person in our community has the necessary support and resources to enhance nutrition, health and welfare.”

Amazon.com for ICC

This will only take a moment of your time; I know you shop at Amazon, especially for the holidays. You can help the Irondequoit Community Cupboard just by going to https://smile.amazon.com and then type in Irondequoit Community Cupboard You would then continue to shop whatever it was you were shopping for and we get a (small) dollar percentage of your order. So we win for you doing what you were going to do anyway. This would be a great and easy way for you to “Help us Help others” in our community.

For more information you can go to Facebook page for up to date photos and info https://www.facebook.com/Irondequoit-Community-Cupboard-Inc-180196068672489/?fref=ts

If you are in need of assistance, please call (585) 336-9107.
(no appointments are made online)

Distribution Hours (BY APPOINTMENT ONLY)
Tuesday & Saturday from 9:30AM - 11:00AM.

Office Hours (BY PHONE ONLY)
Monday & Wednesday 9:00AM - 4:00PM
Fridays 9:00AM-12:00PM

"Letter from the President"
(Fall 2019)

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I cannot believe it is fall already~ beautiful colors on the leaves, the smells of apple and pumpkin, and warm fires as our air becomes cool and crisp. The days are shorter and you know what this means, the holidays are right around the corner! Before I continue there are a few people I really need to thank:

Thank you so much to our garden coordinator, Ann, her amazing family and all of the volunteers who helped maintain our garden this year. The total weight so far for the season is (drumroll please) 749 pounds!! (so far!)

Thank you so much to Irondequoit Lawn and Landscape who maintained our yard all season long, even though their business suffered a tragedy; we are so grateful!
Thank you Mary Kay, Penny, Diane and Cherie who are our face at the Irondequoit Public Market. Your tireless energy and service to ICC is greatly appreciated.

Thank you Warren, Mr and Mrs James and Scott for picking up items at our drop off sites.
Thank you to all of the Neighborhood Associations that provided food, taxables and produce from their own gardens; please let me know which neighborhood won the contest. 😊

Thank you to Don and Nancy for your continued support and generosity.
Thank you to all of you who planted a row for ICC to enjoy produce from your own gardens

Thank you to all of you who made donations for our Back to School Supply night, it was a great success a nd all of the children were happy!

(More thank you’s to follow)

Please make sure you read through this newsletter as it will include important dates and deadlines for our holidays.

Some of you know this story but we have many new people on our email distribution list so it is worth repeating. Several years ago I read about a weekend backpack program that was being offered In Binghamton and I thought it sounded like something we needed. I knew we could do it but I went to Tom Ferraro at Foodlink and spoke with him about my idea and how we could work together to accomplish this. At that time, Foodlink did not offer this program but that didn’t matter to me and we plowed ahead; I am so proud to say we were the FIRST pantry to offer the weekend backpack program to hungry kids in our community.

It costs roughly $200 per child to feed a child through this program. We do NOT receive the food many of you donate to the Fill the Bus campaign. The only food we receive comes from all of us. We send food home on Fridays to children in 5 Irondequoit elementary schools who receive free breakfast and lunch at school. The bag consists of milk, 100% juice, food for 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and at least 3 snacks. In addition to this, we also send a bag of snacks to each school for kids who may need a snack during the day. Last year we averages about 165 kids per week. That is (about) 660 milks a month, 660 juice boxes, food for 1,320 meals and 1,980 snacks! While many kids receive breakfast and lunch at school, dinners and weekends can be very challenging to a struggling household. Often times while growing up, the lunch I received in school was the last meal I had for the day; I never want ANY child to know this feeling.

At this time, we are beginning to get ready for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays which also includes our Special Santa program so many of you love to participate in. I know many people like to get their family to volunteer during the holiday time but we book out 3 months in advance so we are never short staffed. Currently these are the volunteer opportunities I have left:

Assisting our garden coordinator with clearing out our garden

Clearing out the lower level where we get ready for the holidays

Cleaning and organizing in our building and our yard
Helping to put together our Christmas stockings for 1 person adult or senior households (In December)

In the meantime, there is much you can do to “Help us Help others” in our community.

You can drop off nonperishable food items at our one of our area drop offs; Ridge Culver Fire Dept, Irondequoit Library and Pinegrove Senior Center.
You can drop off both nonperishable AND perishable items at our location 4275 Culver Road on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 9am to 11am. (see top 10 list on our website or at the bottom of this letter)
You can donate through Amazon. Whenever you make a purchase through Amazon go through www.smile.amazon.com and then type in Irondequoit Community Cupboard; we get a small percentage of your order cost.
Host a food drive
Make a monetary donation either in person or by mail- checks made out to ICC c/o Debbie Evans PO Box 17834 Rochester, NY 14617 or thru our paypal site (see our website at www.irondequoitcommunitycupboard.org )
Workplace Giving- launch a workplace giving campaign at your company to support us just like ESL did this past month! (Thanks Anne) Anne started a food drive at her work with items we needed off of our Top 10 list. This is easy to do. It can be items from our Top 10 list or it can be one item per month, we are grateful for it all!
Share our needs with your church or social group. Every year the Irondequoit Rotary provides us with 100 baskets for our Christmas Program. It doesn’t have to be this big, it can be anything. Maybe you collect gently used coats or new hats and gloves. Perhaps healthy snacks for our backpack program. Etc.
Ask guests to bring a food or toiletry item to your next party
Honor someone you love by giving a gift to us in their name or in their memory
Talk to your workplace about a dollar match for hunger in our community.
Put a money jar for collection at your local business or place of work,
Donate gift cards from one of our many local stores. For Thanksgiving we give seniors and 1 or 2 person households a $5 gift card towards a turkey.
Follow us on Facebook and share our page with friends
Fill stockings with small personal hygiene items and some treats for our seniors and adults with disabilities for the holidays
Get the kids involved; take your child to the store and have them choose a favorite snack for one of our kids.
Host a gently used coat drive
Collect new hats and warm gloves for us to give to our clients
Put together themed bags like hot cocoa and popcorn and a movie or a cookie mix, frosting and cookie cutters for Christmas decorating

As you can see there is so much that you can do to help ICC.

Keep an eye out for our Annual Newsletter. Every year we send out a newsletter that provides information about what we do and who we help; it is our only fundraising event that we do. 😊 This Christmas will be my 24th year in providing assistance to families in need in our community. Our 16th year that we have been recognized as a non profit 501 c3. We have an amazing working Board of Directors. Our board consists of:
President and Executive Director, Debbie Evans
Chairperson, Lisa Loeser
Co-Chair, Maryjo Toepfer
Treasurer, John Kane
Secretary, Cherie Evans
Board Members at Large, Diane Zaccarine, Mary Bragg, Carolyn DeHond and our newest Board Member, John Villeneuve.

Oct 5th, holiday sign ups begin. The sign ups will be every Tuesday and Saturday through October from 1115-1200 IN PERSON ONLY

Nov 2nd Deadline for Thanksgiving meal sign-ups

Nov 9th Deadline for Special Santa program sign-ups

Nov 11th Special Santa info sent through email distribution list

Nov 12th Medical Motors Thanksgiving distribution
Nov 19th Adults with disabilities and senior citizen distribution

Nov 23rd Family/Household distribution

Nov 26th after distribution we are closed for Thanksgiving holiday, reopening Mon Dec 2nd

Dec 6th 330-530 School and business drop off for the Christmas basket and Special Santas

Dec 10th Medical Motor distribution

Dec 12th Family/household distribution 530-700pm

Dec 17th Adults with disabilities and senior Christmas distribution

Dec 21st 11am closed after regular distribution for the holidays

Jan 3rd Re-open for office hours at 900am

Again, on behalf of myself and our Board of Directors I want to thank ALL of you who continue to support us in every way that you can. Every can, every dollar, every box of mac and cheese, etc counts.



Sincerely,

Debbie Evans President and
Executive Director


Lisa Loeser, Chairperson
MaryJo Toepfer, Vice Chairperson
John Kane, Treasurer
Cherie Evans, Secretary

Diane Zaccarine, Corresponding Secretary
Mary Bragg, Board Member
Carolyn DeHond, Board Member
John Villeneuve, Board Member