“ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A NEW TRUCK…” ONCE AGAIN, THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION AND ITS DONORS MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Conversations between Community Foundation staff and All Faiths Food Bank’s executive director Dan Dunn revealed that there was a real unmet need for the organization this year: a new 26-foot refrigerated truck. With five delivery trucks in its fleet, All Faiths has been playing Santa to more than 200 charitable groups every week, providing their food pantries with a steady supply of low-cost food for a growing number of hungry families in Southwest Florida. They’ve been doing fine finding supplies to meet the unprecedented demand for food, but what they really needed was another truck to get those supplies where they need to go. A new truck costs $90,000. Wendy Hopkins, Tom Waters and the Community Foundation elves got on the case and within a week, they found a group of donors willing to pitch in. In no time at all, $84,000 was raised. The All Faiths Food Bank Foundation came through with the remaining $6,000. A new truck is on the way. "This will improve our distribution rate by 20 percent," said a surprised and delighted Dan Dunn. "The Community Foundation really came through for us." It’s no surprise that working through the Community Foundation, anybody can make a difference where it counts, all year ‘round. You can read more about this lovely Christmas tale in Billy Cox’s article in the Herald-Tribune.: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20071217/NEWS/712170503 Happy Holidays from the Community Foundation!