Friendship House News.

Good things are happening here.

Vol. 3 Issue 1

Farewell 2022 - Hello 2023

As the New Year begins, people find it’s a good time to reflect on the accomplishments of 2022 and Friendship House is no different. This past year was a busy time with long needed building improvements coupled with the need to help an increasing number of families experiencing food insecurity in the communities we serve.

We were fortunate to receive a Foodlink grant to install a walk in freezer which expands our storage capability for food items. A generous donation enabled the replacement of our truck which had seen many years and many miles of daily use. The fine collaboration with several individuals and groups helped to begin improvements to better manage drainage issues around the building and improve the parking area for our customers.

As inflation climbed throughout the year, so too did the number of families seeking food assistance. On average, the Food Pantry saw 28 new families each month. The number of monthly visits peaked in April with 680 visits to the Food Pantry and Bread Shed and then held steady for the remainder of the year. The most number of families served came from Middlesex, Naples and Rushville while the pantry served residents from over a dozen nearby Zip Codes.

Special programs such as The Great Easter Basket Hunt, the Easter Coloring Contest, the Pavilion Sale, the Pop-Up Shop at Rushville Days, Santa Sunday and the Thanksgiving and Christmas programs were all well attended or sold out.

The Thrift Shop team, while not busy with special programs continued to improve on organization and better display of merchandise. The shop doubled their sales from the previous year. As usual, the Thrift Shop revenues support the Food Pantry so an increase in sales is an important to keep Friendship House running.

So, let’s build on the successes of 2022 - bring on 2023!

“We feel accomplished when we can continue to provide food and services for the families who visit us. Improvements to the building and replacing our truck goes a long way to make sure we can continue to serve our community.”

-Craig Carr, Food Pantry Manager

“We want to continue to improve the quality and offerings in the Thrift Shop. It’s important for people to be able to find clothes and household goods that are really affordable. We’ve seen more repeat customers this year and have been able to offer lots of popular specials. When someone can outfit a child in play clothes for a couple dollars, that helps their money go further for other necessities.”

-Cathy Guattery Thrift Shop Manager

Christmas for Families

The Friendship House helps families who are struggling to make ends meet so that they have food and gifts for children at Christmastime. This year the program helped a total of 129 families (564 individuals). Gifts were provided for 200 children from infant to age 13. Families in the Marcus Whitman School District register for the program and provide information about children’s wishes and sizes. The volunteers then spend weeks matching donated gifts, games and puzzles to the right children. Then, a blanket or quilt, sweatshirts, gloves, hats and Christmas stockings are added to the bundle. Boxes are prepared with plenty of food and ingredients for holiday meals. Everything was lined up and ready when the day came for families to pick up the results. The entire team wishes to thank all those who helped make this program possible. A million thanks!

Bombas Partnership

We’re pleased to announce that Friendship House has been approved as a Giving Partner with Bombas, an apparel company that has made it their mission to donate basic clothing items such as socks to the homeless, at-risk communities and people in need. For every purchase, Bombas makes a donation of the same item. Friendship House received approval in December and a shipment of socks to give away in 2023 arrived soon after. The Friendship House team will be distributing socks throughout the year to those in need in our community.

Accepting Credit Cards

The New Year has brought a few nice changes to the Thrift Shop. We are often asked whether we could take a debit card or a credit card but up until now, we’ve only taken cash and checks.

We’ve listened to our customers and taken the time to explore options. Last fall the Board of Directors approved moving forward with plans to re-vamp the payment methods.

A few people worked behind the scenes to get everything set up so that the Thrift Shop could begin 2023 with the option for customers to use debit and credit cards for their purchases.

Volunteers Always Welcome

Did you know that the Thrift Shop and Food Pantry are staffed nearly 100% by volunteers?

From the day-to-day operations to our special programs, there’s always a place for people who share our aim of helping those in need.

Maybe you have a group of friends who have a free Saturday and would like to stop by and help (we think that is cool!!).

Would you like to know more? Visit our website, send us a message, or request a tour. We’d be happy to meet you!

Contact Us

Kindness Thanked

Throughout the holiday season, we are amazed and humbled by the kindnesses shown by people in the community. There are so many ways to help and Friendship House and the people we serve benefit from every single gesture. We extend our thanks to everyone who contributed. Here are just a few ways people showed support:
Chose a Giving Tree tag and donated a toy.
Gave hours of volunteer time.
Gave a coat to the coat drive.
Sponsored a coat drive.
Donated food items and gift cards.
Hosted and promoted a Giving Tree.
Wrote a check or stopped by with a few dollars to help.
Shared posts, got the word out about programs and gave kinds words of support.
What a Couple!

The Food Pantry and Thrift Shop were closed between Christmas and New Years to give our volunteers some well earned time with their families. But, that doesn’t mean things weren’t happening at Friendship House. We’re always amazed at what happens when no one’s looking!
During the time we were closed, one of our Board Members, Laurie Frankenfield and her husband Daryl went to work! This great team managed to re-paint the floors and shampoo the area rugs throughout the House. Thanks Laurie and Daryl, you’re a great couple to have on our team.
Legal Assistance

The Legal Assistance of Western NY increases access to justice through excellent legal representation, advocacy and service. The organization provides free legal aid to people with civil legal problems such as landlord eviction, denial of unemployment, and foreclosure. Pick up a brochure at Friendship House or visit their website at www.lawny.org.

Seed Sale

Get your green thumb ready, Friendship House will be having it’s seed sale in March. Like last year, there will be a wide variety of vegetable, herb and flower seeds to get your garden started. Spring will be here before you know it (event though its cold and snowy now)!
Puddles and Mud

Construction and renovation began in the fall in hopes of being able to upgrade our very unpleasant driveway before the ground froze. With the initial work done, Mother Nature stopped cooperating. It has been very wet; puddles and mud everywhere! We’re praying for dryer weather so we can continue with the driveway and parking lot improvements. Until that time, we would like to thank everyone (customers and volunteers) for their patience as you navigate to and from our door. Please be careful and know that we can’t wait to get this fixed!
Valentine's Sale

The Thrift Shop celebrates all the holidays and right now the displays are up with Valentine’s Day merchandise. Stop in for packets of kids valentines, cool cups, paper goods, decorations and maybe a little gift for someone special. And, St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner so, we have a whole section of items dedicated to putting you in the mood to celebrate.

Heroes of 2022

Our volunteers are our heroes of the year. Friendship House is almost entirely run through the efforts of volunteers who spend hours doing the many big and small jobs that are needed. While we are open just three days a week, volunteers spend the remaining days of the week picking up food donations, organizing clothing donations, cleaning, lifting, sorting, storing, writing thank you’s, and keeping records.

Most days of the week Friendship House picks up donations of food and goods from area stores who partner with us. In 2022 this amounted to over 360,000 pounds of donations. The volunteers load, unload, sort, stock, track and manage every single pound.

Still other volunteers sort, price and arrange donated goods in the Thrift Shop and manage storage and organization of merchandise received from retail stores. All of this work occurs in addition to staffing the Food Pantry and Thrift Shop on days they are open.

In 2022 there were 32 active volunteers who donated their time week in and week out. In total, these volunteers donated 10,400 hours over the course of the year. To understand that number better, it represents 1300 8-hour work days! Eight volunteers donated over 500 hours of their time and three donated 1000 hours or more.

“We want to highlight the tremendous efforts of our volunteers. People should know what they do and how incredibly thankful we are to have such a wonderful team”, says Board Member, Jim Loomis.

To each and every volunteer; our heroes, we thank you for everything you do.

Our Stories

Every place has it’s own special stories and Friendship House is no different. If you happened to visit us over the holidays, you might have noticed one of our neighbors. Todd Clark lives on the corner of Williams Street and has brought us and all of our visitors a special kind of holiday cheer and many smiles. Every year Todd goes all out with Christmas decorations. The tradition was started by his mother over 30 years ago and it’s one he carries on. His holiday display has over 50,000 lights and 68 inflatable figures - a number he adds to each and every year. People come by from all over to see the lights and decorations and Friendship House is so lucky to have Todd as a neighbor.

But, that’s not the whole story. Todd is an avid organic gardener and last year he donated over 3000 pounds of organic vegetables and produce to the Friendship House Food Pantry. Every Saturday through the growing season, Todd’s fresh vegetables were on our shelves for people stopping in.

We think Todd is pretty amazing and we’re happy to thank and honor him by sharing his story.