May 2023 Newsletter

President’s Report

During our May meeting Club membership in attendance voted to approve the Club’s Bylaws revision. Thank you, Jim Brink, for leading the revision.

Our May meeting topic was St Mary’s Food Bank presented by Barb Novicki, John van Hengel founded St. Mary’s Food Bank in 1967. He had been volunteering at a local soup kitchen, serving dinner to those in need when a young mother told him that she depended on soup kitchens and food from grocery store dumpsters to feed her children. His conversation with the young woman created a desire to help hungry families like hers, so he came up with the idea of a “Food Bank” where individuals and companies with excess food could “deposit” it, and those in need could “withdraw” it. His local parish, St. Mary’s Basilica in downtown Phoenix, gave him $3,000 and an abandoned building where he was able to create his food bank and named it “St. Mary’s”, however it has no church affiliation. John van Hengel is referred to as “the father of food banking”. Today, St. Mary’s Food Bank is one of the largest food banks in the United States,
distributing over 100 hundred million pounds of food in a year. All of us can donate $400 to $800 a year from your Arizona income tax. Learn more about and how to volunteer at StMarysFoodBank.org.

Thank you Al Stimac for organizing this presentation. We had 25 attendees.

In a few months, we will be emailing a survey requesting members to provide information on how the Club can be improved to increase attendance at our meetings. The survey is called SurveyMonkey and is being organized by Chuck Jonkosky. Please provide your input.

In September, we will be paper mailing the annual Dues Notice letter. Dues will remain at $15. The notice will indicate if you have any delinquent dues, has a box to donate to our Scholarship Fund, and a place to update your contact information.

Our next meeting is October 4, 2023. Enjoy the summer, stay healthy and see you in October.