Donations accumulate
Annual Community Food Drive
Nan Nasser
For the seventeenth year SaddleBrooke Community Outreach has sponsored a community food drive to benefit our neighbors in Pinal County. On Saturday, March 19 members of SBCO and area residents were involved in curbside pickups, bringing donations to the MountainView Country Club parking lot, sorting all food, checking for expiration dates and making certain no glass went into the vehicles. All donations went to the Tri-Community Food Bank in Mammoth (TCFB).
TB Contractors from Catalina supplied a large truck to transport the cases of food to the food bank. In addition, Oracle Ford had a pickup truck on site, the SBCO Kids’ Closet Van was in service and TCFB took all the paper and hygiene supplies to Mammoth in their truck. Rotary was active, wheeling the loaded boxes on dollies to the trucks, teens from Sycamore Canyon Academy greeted the arriving cars and helped to unload the bags and boxes. And residents of SaddleBrooke Ranch, overseen by Steve Groth, brought six vehicles from the Ranch with 310 bags of food and $1200 in cash donations.
Cynthia Chevalley, chairperson of TCFB, gave a brief description of the need for this food in the Tri-Community area of San Manuel, Mammoth, Oracle and as far north as Aravaipa. About 12,000 food boxes are prepared each calendar year for needy families. What we collect in this annual food drive could last two and a half months.
Bob Evans and Joan Roberts chaired the event. Each unit in SaddleBrooke had a team captain to pick up and deliver their neighbors’ contributions and many (many) volunteers were on hand in the parking lot to accept and sort the goods. Once all was delivered to the Mammoth site the teens from Sycamore plus a few other young people were treated to lunch before returning to their homes. This enormous project provides food, smiles and a strong sense of community participation in supporting our neighbors to the north of us in Pinal County.
Teen Closet delights again
Once again qualifying students enjoyed a shopping spree in January under the auspices of Teen Closet run by Mimi Sander, its program coordinator. Teen Closet is the big sister to the famous Kids’ Closet and helps supply teens from grades 9 through 12 with clothing and supplies for the school year. Twenty-nine students enjoyed the program this season and were assisted by seven SaddleBrooke Ranch volunteers and 20 SaddleBrooke volunteers. Both teens and their shopping assistants had a rewarding and fun time.
For more information, please contact Mimi Sander at 825-4557.
Community shredding event
Nan Nasser
On Friday, April 23 from 8:00 a.m. until noon SaddleBrooke Community Outreach will join Long Realty, Golder Ranch Office, in a shredding and collection of electronics opportunity for all of you! This will take place in the parking area of SBHOA 1 near the bocce ball court.
Bring your stacks of special papers to the location and donate five cans of nonperishable food or $5 per box to this project. The food will go to Tri-Community Food Bank and the money will go to the Beacon Foundation, another nonprofit organization, who will actually be doing the shredding.
The Beacon Foundation is the largest employer of disabled Americans in the area and has several contracts with the U.S. Government for shredding and has the highest clearance for dealing with sensitive federal documents. The electronics accepted include computers, cell phones, printers, etc. But please, no old TV sets.
You can make a difference! Bring your boxes of stuff to be shredded, make a contribution of food or money and clear out those garage shelves of those items you thought were just too special to pitch. Do you want your children to make those decisions?
Is your shredder overworked? Visit the shredding location, make a contribution and know your papers will be well torn apart.