Thursday, January 08, 2009

AWOL from my life!



With all of the time I have spent on the computer these past two weeks you would think it would be easy to do a post.....not so much.
I am so grateful for the generous people who live here and have really overwhelmed us with contributions to the Food Pantry. I'm still trying to dig out from under the piles of paperwork. Yesterday I asked the treasurer for some information regarding a regular donor who only requires a yearly statement and she e-mailed me back with that and the news that someone in the community had passed away and the family asked for donations to the Pantry in lieu of flowers.......sigh. My first priority this year when I'm finished with all of this and we are in the Feb. doldrums, will be to organize this in a better way and make a standard letter. Years ago, when I began writing thank you letters to each donor, there were only a comparative handful. It would pick up at Christmas, Easter, and back-to-school time when food drives resumed. Now we are blessed with many more donations and my little letter writing thing has grown into the hundreds. It really needs to be addressed soon. I have just finished over 200 letters. I'm thinking that will qualify for some sort of bulk mail rate. At the current postal rate that's a lot of stamps, and paper, and printer cartridges etc. Not to mention a lot of non-quilty time for Dee.
Well, at any rate, that's the scoop here at Overwhelmed Central. Please don't get the wrong idea. I'm thrilled that we can complain . It means we are able to feed a lot more families and here on the island many charitable organizations are really hurting and many have closed their doors. I found out last week that there is only one soup kitchen in the whole area left. There used to be a number of them in various churches. It's hard to find volunteers for that kind of thing now since so few woman are available during the day. Everyone has gone back to work.
So, on that note, I will finish some more letters and hope to get back to some fun stuff soon. I am having dinner with the quilting friends tonight. We go out to dinner for Christmas and birthdays. I'm looking forward to seeing them. Hope your day is a peaceful one.