For over 20 years, St. Paul’s has supported families at our three partner elementary schools – Henry Elementary, Dietz K-8 and Robles Elementary – by providing food boxes for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. We have purchased food not only for the holiday itself, but extra food for the other days that children are not in school. This year, we’re trying something new! Instead of physical food boxes, we are collecting monetary donations to provide each family with a grocery store gift card. This allows families the flexibility to purchase food that fits their own traditions and preferences, as well as any dietary restrictions the family may have. All funds collected will be divided equally among our partner families to determine the final gift card amount. This plan has been discussed with the representatives from each school, and they are all very enthusiastic about this change.
You can donate online (select the ‘Holiday Food Boxes’ option), or by placing a check or cash in an envelope and putting it in the Sunday offering. Just mark the envelope for the Holiday Food Drive. Please do not contribute gift cards. We don’t yet know the value of the cards we will be buying, and we want them all to be equal. Last year we gave boxes to 30 families, and our goal is to raise enough for equivalent gift cards for the same number of families. We would like to do this for both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.