Our annual “24 Hours of GRACE” is next Thursday, March 23. We are asking for recurring gifts to support our Hunger Services.
Over the years gifts to “24 Hours” have funded GRACE Emergency Services, the Community Clinic, Transitional Housing, Senior Services, and Children’s Services. In the last few years, “24 Hours” was dedicated to the GRACE response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even now with the pandemic “over”, next Thursday our “24 Hours of GRACE” will ask you to help us provide food to those now facing the impact of escalating inflation and a failing economy.
Food is the single largest constant in requests coming to GRACE. Our Hunger Services have expanded in recent years to provide additional opportunities for those in need.
GRACE hunger relief includes a Self-Select Food Pantry; Senior Commodities that brings groceries and home goods to the mobility-challenged; a summer feeding program for children named “Feed Our Kids”; GRACE Grocery Giveaway visiting at-risk neighborhoods with ample supplies of meat, bread, produce, and dairy; Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday meal distributions; and the Community Gardens which give “green thumb” volunteers the chance to provide fruits and vegetables for our clients’ tables.
You will learn much more about all of our Hunger Services next Thursday when we come to you for help on behalf of our clients and their families. Literally, it is “feast or famine” for GRACE. During November and December, schools, businesses, civic organizations, and many others hold food drives to help fill our shelves. For the most part, we rely on Operating Funds to provide for the remainder of the year.
We will be asking for one-time gifts or, even better, a monthly commitment to help feed those in need. Your monthly commitment—a Recurring Gift–can form a stable source of support that we can budget on, month-after-month. Next Thursday, we will ask you for a recurring gift to support our Hunger Services.
A promise of funding-to-come allows us to anticipate the needs of our clients, and project future costs. This “24 Hours of GRACE” is your chance to do the very most good for the people GRACE serves.
This year’s “24 Hours” may be the most important online campaign we have mounted to date. Food is first-level priority on a hierarchy scale of human motivation. In real terms, hunger needs must be satisfied before our clients can attend to higher needs. (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory)
GRACE will continue taking on each families’ struggles one-by-one, and assuring each their troubles will ultimately end, and they will be stronger and more self-reliant because of their valiant fight.
But only with your help.
Your recurring gift of $500 or more annually, gives us a chance to thank you and declare your generosity to the rest of the community: we will deliver a “Choose GRACE” sign suitable for mounting in your front lawn.
Your “Choose GRACE” sign will let everyone know you have made a gift to secure the future of GRACE. GRACE needs your help now more than ever—your generous recurring gift will help GRACE and our community finally put this crisis behind us, and look forward to a secure, healthy, and stable future.
We also ask you to spread the word about “24 Hours of GRACE” and the significance of recurring gifts. As last year passed, more and more donors came forward with recurring gifts: weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, and even quarterly.
A promise from you to support GRACE with a recurring gift elevates the capacity of GRACE to serve and helps us plan months down the road. A monthly gift provides stability and strengthens our ability to anticipate the future needs of our clients.
This coming week you will receive messages from Shonda Schaefer, our Chief Executive Officer. On Thursday, she will ask you to please make a pledge—a vow to give on a recurring basis.
It’s hard for many of our clients to keep the end goal in sight. Our Hunger Services help them overcome that first barrier and gives them the confidence they can overcome all of their difficulties.
