Food For Thought

Ron Karp, Executive Director (L), with Bruce Higton

The Golden Can Opener is the highest award we give at Food For Thought.

It is presented to someone who has made, in a volunteer capacity, an outstanding contribution to the organization in all areas of service.

It’s not presented annually. We only give it when we feel it’s warranted. Only nine of the awards have been presented in the 20 years of the organization.

And now there’s ten:

Bruce Higton is the newest addition to the exclusive Golden Can Opener society.

Bruce has been volunteering at Food For Thought for nearly 10 years. He volunteers in the daily operations of the food bank and volunteers at our events. He has served on the event committees for Dining Out For Life and our bi-annual antique auction. Bruce recently retired from the FFT board after six years, two of them as president. He is a generous donor and has used his business contacts to help us purchase wholesale food at low prices. He has been a Secret Santa to our clients. He is a tireless supporter of the food bank, and his outreach efforts have connected us with many business partners.

Our congratulations to Bruce. We couldn’t bestow the Golden Can Opener on a nicer guy!

You can see a list of Golden Can Opener winners and other outstanding volunteers here.

Food For Thought’s Project Africa exists as part of a larger effort by a group of partnering ANSA members. ANSA is the Association of Nutrition Service Agencies, an international group of organizations that feed people. Many of these groups were founded in response to the U.S. AIDS epidemic, now a pandemic.

Please take a moment to watch this video about the work we’re doing in Africa. (There’s music, so turn up your volume!)

For those of you who are already friends of Food For Thought: Watch carefully, you may see someone you know!

Donations to Food For Thought’s Project Africa may be made through the secure
“Donate Now” button on the left side of this page.
Indicate in the memo box that the donation is for Project Africa.

Two friends of the food bank have found a creative way of raising money for Food For Thought’s Project Africa: They’re walking (and walking and walking… )!

Last year Connie Beall, an enthusiastic FFT volunteer for more than a dozen years, walked the Coast to Coast route 192 miles across England, raising more than $7,500 to support food programs in Namibia.

This year, she and Chard Lowden plan to walk 95 miles across Scotland on the West Highland Way. They’ll set out on July 9 from Milngavie (pronounced Mill-guy), just outside of Glasgow and will finish in Ft. William on July 17. Their route goes south to north, straight up along Loch Lomond on old roads through the western highlands of Scotland (hence the name, the West Highland Way). It’s one of the first and most famous of the long distance walks in the United Kingdom. (See a map of their route, below.)

If you’d like to donate to support their walk, use the Donate Now! button to the left of this page and put “Walk for Africa” in the comments box.

The basic info about their walks is on their website, www.walkingforprojectafrica.org so be sure to check in. Especially lovely is their blog (and you’re here because you’re a blog reader, right?). It already has details about their training walks and preparation, as well as some great photos. They’ll make regular posts as they go along their “ramble”.

Here is what Connie has to say about the upcoming trek:

We’re hoping to elude the midges which are little “no see ums” that are famous for driving people nuts. Apparently one of the best repellants is Avon’s Skin So Soft. Who knew? We have to stock up.

It may surprise some, but I actually look forward to eating pub food- everything comes with chips (fries). On all my walks the pub food has been excellent, especially desserts. I hope to have kippers for breakfast too, a nice salty bony fish! I’ll have a half pint of cider before dinner but we’ll pass on all the local ales.

The Scots are famous for bloody massacres and we’re taking a day detour towards the end of the walk to Glencoe, site of the Campbell’s violation of clan hospitality by murdering a whole bunch of MacDonald’s after hosting them for 10 days — a political thing. The MacDonalds haven’t forgiven the Campbells yet…

Well, hopefully Connie and Chard won’t get caught in the crossfire. We’ll keep you updated about their walk.