Mark your calendars!
Come to our live Auction June 7
Auction starts at 1 p.m.
Pellini Chevrolet Building
Corner of Bodega Hwy. & Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol
Downtown Sebastopol will ring with the sound of the auctioneer’s gavel on June 7, as Food For Thought holds its seventh biennial live auction. The event focuses on antiques and collectibles, wine, and luxury items.
Starting promptly at 1 p.m., the sale will be officiated by Auctioneer Kenn Cunningham, a Benefit Auction Specialist with the National Auctioneers Association. On the block will be a collection of fine quality American, Asian and European antiques, collectibles and art from around the world, oriental rugs, fine wines, furniture and decorative accessories, luxury vacations, restaurant dinners and many other desirable items.
There are always unusual items. This year’s auction will feature a beautiful Japanese stair-step tansu, a velvet Victorian crazy quilt, and a cherry 1978 Chervolet Impala, among lots of other beautiful and unique things.
Annual Home & Garden Tour
On one of the hottest, sunniest days of the spring seven generous property owners opened their homes and gardens to benefit Food For Thought.
Our 14th annual Western Sonoma County Home & Garden Tour was a huge success.
Why?
Happiness.
Volunteers
Our volunteers at Food For Thought roll up their sleeves and get involved in a variety of ways.
In 2008, our volunteers worked in the wine tents at the Russian Riuver Blues and Jazz Festivals; they erected more tents at Calabash where they did everything from cleaning the food bank to pouring wine, serving food and mopping up the next day; they dusted and decorated at FFT Antiques; built fences, weeded the gardens, harvested tomatoes, pampered our chickens, and even steam cleaned the parking lot. They worked hard and had fun doing it!
You can read more about volunteer opportunities and how to become a FFT volunteer under the “volunteer” tab at the top of this page.
Dining Out For Life
Your meal out is helping to buy food »
Once again, Dining Out For Life turned out to be Sonoma County’s biggest dinner party!
This is our biggest annual money-raising event,” says Ron Karp, FFT’s executive director.
“This was the seventh year we’ve held this event and every year it’s grown bigger. We started with 32 restaurants and this year 60 participated,” he says. “We get a lot of enthusiastic support. We heard from people who ate every meal in a restaurant that day.”
Thanks to our special supporters »
By Ron Karp, Executive Director
Here at the food bank we work hard all year to make sure that our 550 clients have the food and nutritional support that they need to be healthy. Anyone who buys food knows that the price of basic foods like rice, grains, vegetables and fruit increased dramatically in 2008.
Rather than reduce the amount of food that we give to clients, who were already being challenged by the economic downturn, we instead appealed to you, our supporters, to be as generous as possible. As you can see in this newsletter, thousands of thoughtful folks like yourself made donations to ensure that we would not have to make cuts to our services.
Several families decided to donate the cash to Food For Thought that they would otherwise have spent on holiday gifts for friends and family. People who could afford to gave us more than usual. Others made sacrifices just to keep their donation the same. We are extremely grateful to all of you for your support, especially knowing that you face challenges as well.
Some of our support is ongoing and very significant, and deserves special mention. The Dorian Fund of San Francisco gave us a three-year grant to improve our fundraising capacity. Kaiser Permanente Foundation funded our Children’s Pantry Program for one year and sponsored Calabash. The Charles A. Frueauff Foundation funded our food program for the third year. The Lazy Bear Fund has provided support every year since 1996.
California Food Connections and the Giving Tree Project of the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County have been generous behind the scenes supporters for years. The grocery store gift cards and presents for the children of our clients come from these two wonderful sources.
All of the profits from our store, FFT Antiques in Sebastopol, come back to Food For Thought to support our clients. Gary Patterson has helped us get the store established by serving on an advisory committee and by generously funding improvements to the building. Gary’s business, Atherton Lane Advisors, is a top auction sponsor as well.
Finally, we would like to acknowledge the ongoing generous support of Russell Wherritt. Russell chaired the committee that raised the funds for our building in Forestville, has provided operating support for more than ten years, and is the recipient of the Food For Thought Founders Award.