World AIDS Day

Today- Thursday, Dec. 1 - is World AIDS Day. 

It will be a busy day for Moveable Feast. Twenty-seven volunteers from MAC Cosmetics will be here to work in the kitchen, while other staff and volunteers will join in the festivities of BMORE AWARE: The Living Red Ribbon at Coppin State.  

This is the 30^th anniversary of the identification of HIV in the US.

Some of you may recall that early on in this epidemic, HIV was a death sentence for those infected. Having AIDS often meant not only sickness but also isolation and rejection.  Friends were getting sick and dying. Fortunately, friends were also helping each other. In fact, the founder of Moveable Feast, Bob Mehl, an employee of the Baltimore City Health Department, was a staunch advocate for his friends and the community around him whom he saw dying from AIDS. That’s how Moveable Feast got started.  Bob insisted that the City do something to help people living with AIDS.  Bob fought tirelessly to secure funding from Mayor Kurt Schmoke and was asked by Mayor Schmoke to head a group to address this issue.  The core idea of Moveable Feast was born:  provide nutritious meals to people living with HIV/AIDS free-of-charge and, just as importantly, deliver those meals with care and compassion. Unfortunately, Bob himself succumbed to AIDS before Moveable Feast ever served its first meals, but the seeds of compassion were sown for decades to come.

For more than 22 years, Moveable Feast has focused its mission on serving people who have been ostracized from their families, ridiculed by their communities, demoralized by poverty, and feared by the ignorance, prejudice and self-righteousness that often plagues even the most well-intentioned people. Ours has been a mission that nourishes the body, soul and spirit, without regard for color, race, creed, origin or sexual identification. 

Indeed, we are an example of a “feast to which all are welcome.”

World AIDS Day is a day to remember those who have died from AIDS and to remember the nearly 1 million people in the US who live courageously with HIV. We also celebrate those heroes, past and present, who have contributed to the health and wellness of people with HIV. It’s a day to educate and “b’more aware” of our focus to reduce the number of new HIV infections and to ensure treatment for those who are infected. Consequently, it’s also a day to remember that many people with HIV continue to live in some form of isolation:  fearful of the rejection, ridicule and prejudice that surround this disease.

Thank you for the difference you make each day to advance the mission of Moveable Feast. I take tremendous pride in our staff, board, donors and volunteers who demonstrate a deep and genuine concern for the health and welfare of all our clients, but especially in those who live with HIV/AIDS. In whatever capacity you contribute to Moveable Feast, it is only by working together that we impact the health and wellness of those who are sick and poor, thus strengthening our entire community.

Together let us be diligent in our efforts to FEED people, FIGHT disease and FOSTER hope!

Thomas Bonderenko

Executive Director

222 More Meals

Yesterday we posted about the many Thanksgiving treats we’re preparing for our clients this week as well as what we are incredibly thankful for- supporters like YOU. (Read yesterday’s post here.)

Today- with Thanksgiving only a day away - GiveCorps is giving us a chance to fund 777 meals for our neighbors in need AND to give back to those who donate ($10 off at Alonso’s & Loco Hombre!). During our first promotion on GiveCorps, a Baltimore-based website guided by the idea of “Give Local. Get Local.,” we reached our goal of $1,000 in one day. Now, we’re trying to raise just $400 more to provide 222 additional meals.  

How can you help?

1.       Make an online donation to our Moveable Feast project “Providing Hope Through Meals” on GiveCorps.

2.       Mail a check payable to the GiveCorps Foundation with “Moveable Feast” in the memo line to: The GiveCorps Foundation, PO Box 5606 Baltimore, MD 21210.

3.       Mobilize your network by pushing the project to your Facebook and Twitter communities!

As you look forward to feasting with your family this Thanksgiving, help us make sure that others are able to enjoy a healthy holiday meal as well.  

Here's to food, family and good health this holiday season!

Giving Thanks

 

The Moveable Feast family (donors, volunteers, staff, etc.) provides meals for Marylanders in need 365 days a year. But it’s around the holidays that our supporters really go the extra mile in making sure that clients not only have meals but also the sense of a loving community around them.

This year for Thanksgiving, we are so excited for our clients to receive the following:

-          Traditional Thanksgiving Dinners: clients will either receive a turkey box comprised of a 14-15 lb turkey, 10 pounds of potatoes, a can of green beans, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, stuffing mix and a dessert OR a Thanksgiving dinner freshly prepared here in our kitchen and delivered to their doors ready to eat.

-          Festive Thanksgiving Cupcakes: made and donated by our amazing IIDA and BOMA volunteers (read our last post about their cupcake-making event here)

-          Thanksgiving Cards: created by numerous groups, including the Transitional Head Injury Program, IIDA and BOMA.   

We are honored to be able to make Thanksgiving extra special for our clients, and we simply could not and would not be able to do that without Moveable Feast supporters. You are the ones who have put in the time to bake, to create, to prepare and to deliver. You are the ones who make this organization what it is. At this time of the year- when we think about what we are grateful for- there’s no hesitation for Moveable Feast staff in responding: for supporters like YOU.

Thank you!

Cupcakes, Cards and Holiday Cheer

Yesterday, November 17^th, over 40 amazing IIDA and BOMA volunteers entered the fray at our kitchens again. Every November for the past few years, this enthusiastic crew picks a night to take over Moveable Feast and prepare festive treats for our clients.

This year, they had a large task ahead; decorating and beautifully packaging 1,800 Thanksgiving cupcakes. With only three hours to work (and powered by delicious treats provided by Absolutely Perfect Catering), our dedicated volunteers managed to not only prepare and package hundreds of cupcakes, but they also created charming holiday cards and sorted through items they had collected through a food drive. The donated goods alone are enough to offset our grocery purchasing for the rest of the year! We can’t thank our volunteers enough for helping to make the holidays a little sweeter for our clients.

Take a look at some of the highlights from the event!  

Funding & Service Update

Thank you for your amazing support and encouragement over these past few months! It is with great happiness that we announce that, effective October 15^th, Moveable Feast was able to return our clients to full service.  While the federal financial delays created a lot of initial uncertainty, they also forced us to reevaluate our priorities and services, which have resulted in a few noteworthy changes:

1.       Moveable Feast will make the move that many Association of Nutrition Service Agencies (ANSA) programs have done to reduce grocery foods and provide a more healthy and nutritious balance of prepared foods, groceries and fresh produce. This will result in a 30% increase in our meal production and a decreased distribution of canned goods.

2.       Clients demonstrating the greatest need will receive 18 prepared meals, delivered twice weekly.

3.       Other clients will receive 12 prepared meals per week consisting of lunch and dinner entrees, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables as available.

4.       Children and caregivers will be added back to service on an individual need basis.

 With these adjustments, we believe we can better serve our clients and assure the fulfillment of our mission. Thank you for proving how strong and enthusiastic a support base we really have here at Moveable Feast.

Only together can we FEED people | FIGHT disease | FOSTER hope.

Food Day

If you visit Moveable Feast today, you’ll notice something a little different when you walk into the building: a welcome table set up with all sorts of information about food stamps, nutrition and a collection of a week’s worth of food that you can buy with $30 (the average SNAP benefit in Maryland).



To see the list of food purchased and more on the Food Stamp Challenge, click here.



This display celebrates Food Day- October 24^th- as a day to “push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way.” Sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Day furthers the following goals:

1.       Reduce diet-related disease by promoting safe, healthy foods

2.       Support sustainable farms & limit subsidies to big agribusiness

3.       Expand access to food and alleviate hunger

4.       Protect the environment & animals by reforming factory farms

5.       Promote health by curbing junk-food marketing to kids

6.       Support fair conditions for food and farm workers

At Moveable Feast, food is central to our mission, and every day we witness the powerful effects that access to good nutrition has on the health of our clients and their families. Join us in observing Food Day by attending a local event, signing a petition and spreading the word!

A few Food Day events around the city include:

Food Day Teach-In: Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future is hosting a series of food-related presentations, ending at 3pm.

National Food Day Event in Pigtown: Check out activities emphasizing healthy eating and talk to representatives from various Baltimore organizations that work to improve access to healthy foods. 2:30 @ George Washington Elementary School

Vegetarian—Food Day Dinner: A dinner hosted by The VRG for World Food Day at 5pm tonight @ Mr. Chan’s Szechuan Restaurant (registration required).

Find out more ways to get involved on the Food Day website.

Guest Blog: Moveable Feast's Recipe for Successful Volunteer Management

A few weeks ago, Volunteer Maryland’s latest crew of Americorps members (part of their Volunteer Maryland Coordinators program) spent a full day at Moveable Feast volunteering and thinking about the “best practices” of volunteer management. Barb Cooke, a VMC peer leader, was kind enough to share her blog post reflecting on the day and, more specifically, on the recipe for a successful volunteer program. You can find her full blog post here.

Here is how Moveable Feast makes it happen:

Ingredients:
~heartfelt passion
~a solid understanding of the community need and agency mission
~a handful of humility
~knowledge of staff/volunteer investment, policies and documentation
~heaping helping of flexibility
~effective recruitment, orientation/training, and recognition
~healthy sprinkling humor

 

Directions:
1) Have Volunteer Coordinator, Tom Patrick, share his passion and that of Moveable Feast with you. He began “helping out” over 20 years ago and continues to carry the mission of volunteer work at Moveable Feast forward.
2) Choose from several areas in which to commit your time. Our volunteers were divided between the kitchen, garden and office. However, it rained. . .and then it poured. No worries, Tom was quite masterful at finding alternative tasks crucial to the program. Because Moveable Feast’s volunteer procedures and position descriptions are clear and well-defined, the garden group easily took on other responsibilities including, follow-up phone calls and writing Thank You letters to volunteers.
3) Tom was adept at weaving our service that day into the rich tapestry of Moveable Feast history. We also received training in required procedures, were invited (recruited) to return for upcoming events and, walked out feeling like we had made a real difference.
4) If you’re interested in “tasting” Moveable Feast’s recipe for volunteering first hand, contact Tom and add yourself; groups are welcome!

At the conclusion of our Service Day, the Volunteer Maryland Peer Leaders, Joy and I, facilitated small group discussions with the Volunteer Maryland Coordinators reflecting on what we had learned at Moveable Feast. The reflections acknowledged the importance of including flexibility, humor and structure in a successful volunteer program. Each group prepared a demonstration that symbolized their experience. The demonstrations included group spoken word, ingredients to build a volunteer cupcake (Did you wonder where I got the idea for this post?) and a family convincing reluctant teenagers to get involved in service. This opportunity gave the Volunteer Maryland Coordinators personal practice in a successful volunteer experience. Now, they are putting this process into practice as they recruit and manage volunteer programs at their Service Sites.

  

2nd Annual B'More Aware of HIV: The Living Red Ribbon

The free meals Moveable Feast delivers to our neighbors help to give them the strength to fight HIV or AIDS, but we don’t just stop there. We work with AIRS and Chase Brexton (forming the Partnership for Life) to raise awareness about this disease so that less people need our meals in the future.

You can help.

Join us for the Partnership for Life’s B’More Aware of HIV: The Living Red Ribbon event:

When:  World AIDS Day, Thursday, December 1st

 9am-3pm | Living Red Ribbon at 12:30pm

Where: Coppin State University - Physical Education Complex

Why:    To raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in the Baltimore Community, to share available resources and information, and to provide a safe space for free HIV testing

Click image to see full details

Last year, we had hundreds of community members come out for the health fair, speeches, entertainment, free HIV testing, and formation of a living red ribbon. This year, we’re calling on even more people to stand with us in red.

For more information:

• Read a volunteer’s reflections about last year’s event here
• Peruse the front page B’More Aware article in our Fall Newsletter here
• Visit: http://bmoreaware.kintera.org/ or call AIRS at 410.576.5070

AIRS Takes on People On The Move

For the past 12 years, Moveable Feast has developed and grown the program, People on the Move, a free driver training program and shuttle transportation system for people who are experiencing homelessness. Monday through Friday, our drivers made stops at numerous homeless shelters, picking up individuals and dropping them off at different resource centers around Baltimore City, including Health Care for the Homeless, Chase Brexton and the Department of Social Services. 

This week, we are happy to announce that AIRS, a non-profit that provides supportive housing services, will be taking over the facilitation of People on the Move (POTM). POTM has helped to connect countless people to resources which have helped them to get back on their feet, and now AIRS will ensure that many more continue to benefit from this service. 

 To learn more about POTM through AIRS, please contact:

Linda Richardson

Operations Manager

410.576.5070 x31

To learn more about AIRS, click here.

Turning "Likes" into Meals

How can carpet, hardwood and glass translate into meals for Marylanders in need? Floors Etc. is making it happen with your help. Floors Etc. is a local flooring boutique that has been serving Baltimore for 120 years. They’ve been voted “Baltimore’s Best Flooring Company” twice by Baltimore Magazine, and over the next three months, they are taking their customer and community service to a new level: Facebook.

From now until the end of December, Floors-Etc will donate $1 to Moveable Feast for every person that “likes” their facebook page. With our strong network of online supporters, this simple challenge could provide a lot more meals for men and women struggling with serious illnesses. So take a second to “like” Floors Etc.’s facebook page and spread the word!