Veronica Ng and her family are in Namibia, where they plan to spend some time helping the Hope Initiatives soup kitchen.

Connie Beall and Chard Lowden are in Scotland, getting ready to start their fundraising walk.

They sent this note to share with you:

A quick note from Glasgow. We’ve been doing the city sites in Glasgow and Edinburgh and walking all over both cities to keep in shape for the walk. We’re having a great time and we’re also ready to be out in the country. Tomorrow we take the train to Milngavie to start our walk on Wednesday. Scotland is sunshine and showers, we’re never without the raincoats! But it’s not at all cold. Scotland is so green and lush and the flowers are beautiful. More from the walk.

Connie and Chard

When Santa Rosa gastroenterologist Veronica Ng decided to retire, she made a generous decision. In lieu of gifts, she asked that her well-wishers make a donation to Food For Thought’s Project Africa program. It’s an amazing thing to see how such a simple act can send ripples out into the world. Friends, family, and business contacts of Dr. Ng have raised nearly $3,500 to help feed children impacted by HIV/AIDS in Namibia.

Recently, Patricia Sola visited Food For Thought. She founded the organization in Namibia called Hope Initiatives that runs soup kitchens and a bridge school. Project Africa helps to support her programs. You can bet she’ll be putting Dr. Ng’s retirement gift to good use. And, in an emotional moment that made the world seem like a very small place, Dr. Ng was able to personally present her with a check from Food For Thought.

Dr. Ng says that she’ll be kicking off her retirement with a trip to Africa with her children that will include working in one of Patricia Sola’s kitchens.

There are so many ways to help!

However, Rachel and Doug, who are in charge of our garden, may be the proudest of all:

We thought our chickens were unusually friendly — they don’t mind being held — and describe them as the “poodles of chickens”, but have recently heard it’s a feature of the breed. Nonetheless, we think they’re pretty darned special.

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The FFT garden was all green and shiny a month ago, filled with young greens. Now, the pastel blooms of spring sweet peas and poppies have been replaced with the first faces of our vibrant sunflowers.

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It brings to mind this passage from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Sunflowers”

“…Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy

but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young -
the important weather,

the wandering crows.
Don’t be afraid
to ask them questions!”

By the way, Mary Oliver will be reading her work December 1, at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa and tickets are still available!

Here’s a seasonal recipe from the book, to whet your appetite:

White Bean Salad with Shrimp and Asparagus

1 lb. asparagus, sliced into 1 inch pieces
1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tsp. freshly ground back pepper, divided
1 tsp. kosher salt, divided
1 1/2 tsp. vegetable oil
5 oz. torn spinach
2 (19 oz.) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed.
4 bacon slices
1/2 cup sliced green onions
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
4 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. cider vinegar

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Cook or steam asparagus until tender-crisp. Drain and rinse with cold water. Sprinkle shrimp with 1/2 tsp. pepper and 1/2 tsp. salt. Heat oil in a medium non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add shrimp; saut 4 minutes; remove from pan, and place in a large bowl. Add asparagus, spinach, onions, and beans to shrimp; toss well.

Add bacon to pan; cook over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan; crumble. Reserve 1 Tbsp. drippings in pan. Add garlic; cook 3 minutes or until soft, stirring fequently. Remove from heat; add remaining pepper, salt, bacon, broth, and the remaining ingredients. Drizzle dressing over salad; toss to coat. Serve immediately.

This recipe was submitted to the Food For Thought Cookbook by food bank friend Patricia Willets. Thanks, Patricia!

“I am delighted to be here to carry on the work and fill the huge gap left by Stewart Scofield. I was lucky enough to know Stewart as a good friend and a mentor. Stewart and I were both from small towns in Indiana — Hoosiers –- and we were both trained as librarians with our masters degrees at UC-Berkeley. We also both turned 60 this year.

I have been volunteering with Face for Face for 20 years and began volunteering at Food for Thought six years ago and loved it. I always left feeling better than when I arrived. When I took a paying job as the volunteer coordinator at Canine Companions for Independence, I asked Stewart what he thought and he said the job had my name written all over it – he was right. I love this work! I feel like Stewart is looking over my shoulder and guiding my path here at Food for Thought and I look forward to carrying on his good work. The staff here at Food for Thought has all pulled together at this difficult time, but Allen Chivens has been instrumental in making this a smooth transition. Allen manages our antique store, but has taken time to manage the volunteer program since Stewart’s death, and train me.

I know some of you and am looking forward to meeting many more. As a volunteer manager, I’m used to asking, begging, and pleading for your time and talents. I believe that volunteers are the heart and soul of what we do, and we can’t do it without you. Please come by the office and say “hello” — to me and my “canine companion” Samir –- a large yellow labrador retriever who shares my life and my office. We are both eager to meet you.”

As part of our annual fundraising Calabash celebration, artist and FFT volunteer Nancy Tello has conducted a series of workshops, leading participants in creating a piece of gourd art in memory of a loved one.

This will be the eighth year we’ve held Calabash (this year’s festival will be held Sunday, October 5), and the fourth year of the Memorial Gourd Workshop. Classes will be Thursday evenings July 10,17, 24, 31 and then an additional closure session will be held (at a date yet to be announced). For further information please contact Rachel Gardner at Food For Thought, 707.887.1647, or by email, rachelg@fftfoodbank.org.

Recently, Nancy wrote about her experiences from the first workshop:

“The first year was such an amazing experience. Each person brought a picture of the person they wanted to memorialize. We called out each name before we started, then process began. Few of the participants had ever worked with gourds as an art medium, but this was not your typical art project. Photos, shells, anything that was a reminder of the person was incorporated into the gourd. We all shared experiences about the people we were honoring. There were tears, laughter, hugs, and so much support. There were some participants, who until that time, hadn’t allowed themselves to feel the grief of their loss. Through all of this we recognized we had a common cause — to honor a special person in our lives. Here are a few quotes from people in that class:

“I thought I had worked through my grief about my dear friend, but this class helped direct my feelings even more. It brought joy for me to see something permanent in honoring our relationship; it also helped me through the turmoil that I was feeling due to my recent diagnosis of my own HIV status. I felt such a sense of comradery and support from each person in the class.” - Ron

” I appreciated taking the class with my mother, both of us making a gourd, we sat and spent time talking about my brother, and our relationship with him. Sharing with others in the class about him made me feel so supported. Knowing that I was not alone in my feelings was such a comfort, it helped me to appreciate my brother and to celebrate his life.” - Elaine

“My partner was the first to pass away in our group of friends, it was all so new, and no one knew what was happening. There was no support, no understanding at all, so it was very difficult to go through. I took the first memorial gourd workshop and it was there I found the support I had needed to finally accept and move on with my grief.” - Jim

So it’s time for the call to go out again. If you’d like to honor someone you know who has died of AIDS, come take the workshop. You’ll find a safe, supportive, loving place for your creative expression.

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.

This is a favorite picture from our recent Take a Walk on the Wild Side benefit for Project Africa.

On the invitation we had said “Safari/African attire encouraged”. This definitely shows the range of interpretation, not to mention the creativity of some of our supporters.

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You can see more photos and read about the event here.

To the left, Peaches Henning (chair of the Project Africa committee) and Gene Bonino pose in front of the quilt at our recent “Take A Walk on the Wild Side” benefit for Project Africa. The night, which featured a dinner-dance and silent auction, was held at Safari West wild animal preserve in Santa Rosa. It was a resounding success, raising nearly $20,000 to help support programs in Africa. You can read more about Project Africa here.