The past two years have been hard. Families lost income through loss of job, or may have lost family members to illness. Food should not be another area of loss. Everyone should know they will have dinner on the table. Everyone should feel life will be good. Everyone should always have hope for the future.
We will stock our local Little Free Pantry with shelf-stable goods. We will share information about our Little Free Bakery. We will share Jane Goodall\'s message of hope and determination through the sharing of her latest book, The Book of Hope. We plan to write a message on the inside to the next person to pick it up. We want to help others to know there is goodness in the world, and these obstacles we face can be overcome through kindness and compassion instead of selfishness and greed.
This was an uplifting and hopeful project! It was a success in many ways. We made a new contact in our community (the person who started the Little Free Pantry in our area) and we combined forces with our own Little Free Bakery. When Thanksgiving came around, we even gave the Pantry bakery items and supplies for their Thanksgiving Dinner baskets! We will be continuing to share with this Little Free Pantry!
We learned about a new friend in our community! We learned new ways to contribute in our community. We learned that Jane Goodall likes our work! Thank you Dr. Jane and JGI for the books, The Book of Hope. We were delighted to take part and share. We also learned how much of an impact Covid had on our own family. A job loss at the start of the pandemic set our family back and times were tough. Looking back and seeing how far we have come since then gave us hope for looking ahead! This project brought up a lot of discussion and emotions. Thank you!
We would ask the organizer of our Little Free Pantry what items seem to be most needed. I know often things like cooking oil are needed, but not always available. We would like to try to connect the community with useful things. We also left a note inside the Pantry letting people know about our Little Free Bakery. Next time, we might bring a magnet to hang it up!
Our favorite part was receiving a book and a letter from Dr. Jane! Of course, we love to share and #DoGoodThings, but receiving a letter from our family's inspiration was touching. This was a proud moment for our family!
Our family distributes bakery items from a local grocery store chain to the community once a week. These are items that would otherwise be thrown away. If you would like to keep food in bellies instead of landfills, ask a grocery or bakery near you if they will give unused items to charitable causes. Many do!
