The Giving Plate seeks help to stay afloat

The Giving Plate needs your help. As of Jan. 1, The Giving Plate Food Bank must make the difficult decision to stop offering services to the Bend La-Pine area unless we are able to secure funding for the operational costs involved with keeping this outreach open.

We have joyfully been serving our community for 6 ½ years. We need the support of our community in order to continue on providing food to anybody in need. We have been blessed to receive grant funds to provide food, but the grantors require that we have more community support in order to continue to provide us with grant money for food.

We are grateful to numerous organizations, individuals and foundations that have provided us funds to serve our community. We are also very thankful for NeighborImpact who provides us with unmatched purchasing power, the Bend Food Project for all the food they have collected on our behalf, and the local grocers who donate. We have been blessed to have plenty of food to provide to our guests over the years.

Statistics:

We have given away over 3 million pounds of food since opening in 2010.

We serve over 2,000 people a month.

The average cost to serve one person is just $5.

Each person receives on average, 25 lbs. of food.

Each family gets one hearty food box a month but can come in any day we are open for bread products.

46,000 lbs. of food were given out in October.

We serve free lunches to 50-70 children every Saturday.

We have a homebound delivery service for seniors and disabled.

Per Neighborimpact we are one of the largest food banks in the Tri-Counties.

We are the only Food Bank in the Tri-Counties open on Saturday.

360 families received a Holiday Meal for this Thanksgiving above and beyond their food box.

The Giving Plate is not governmentally funded. We do not have a large underwriter. We are faith based, however we are not a church-run outreach. We were independently, and locally founded.

The need for operational funds is imperative. The operational expenses include: rent, utilities, insurance, fuel, maintenance, food and supplies. Currently all staff are on volunteer status and putting in endless hours to make sure we meet the needs through the holidays.

We need committed monthly sponsors to continue into 2017. If you can help us get through the Christmas holiday by making a tax-deductible gift, we would be very grateful…as would those we serve.

Thank you for considering coming alongside us during this 2016 holiday season, and into 2017. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at 541-410-3086. We are open to options.

If you would like to send a donation you can do it three ways:

*PayPal, on our website at www.thegivingplate.org,

*Send your gift to: 1245 SE 3 rd St. C-7, Bend, Oregon 97702.

*In person. Come by and take a tour, and experience the heart behind this outreach for yourself! We would love to show you around!

Respectfully,

Gary and Debi Kelso. Founders

Check us out on Facebook www.facebook.com/TheGivingPlate/