Looking Forward to 2024!

Dear Supporters,

At the beginning of a year, as I reflect on the old one and look forward to the new one, I find a word or a phrase or a theme that emerges to set the tone for the year. This year, I almost didn’t have one, but last week it came to me: my word for 2024 is faithfulness.

That certainly is personal component, but I think it holds promise for THCA moving forward into 2024 – and beyond.

How can we be faithful to our mission?
Faithful to our neighbors?
Faithful to our supporters?
Faithful to our community?

You all, our supporters, have certainly demonstrated faithfulness and are leading by example, as you have donated of your money, volunteered time, held drives for us, and shared what we are doing here as Neighbors Helping Neighbors.

Even as we begin the new year, it is helpful for us to glance at the old one to see what we have accomplished together – because it is only with your support that we were able to break records in helping others.

So, by the numbers for 2023:

1,230,348 pounds of free groceries given to
24,338 low and no income families with
67,694 people in them, as well as

6,783 hot lunches shared and
24,562 articles of clothing given

Those are all records and they reflect the incredible need in our neighborhood, and our success in sharing not just food, but hope and hospitality, kindness and compassion.

As you all know, the numbers are important most of all because they represent our neighbors – real people with real need. And the need is not going away or dying down. Already this year, we are averaging 215 families served each day we are open -almost 3 times as many as 5 years ago!

In all honesty and frankness, meeting this level of need is stretching us to the limits, requiring a focus of all of our resources: human, financial, technological, and more. The only way we are doing so is due to your faithfulness in supporting us.

We know that we will continued to be called upon to serve families who are in need of enough healthy food for their family, like

recent refugees who fled and now have to rebuild their lives
recovering addicts finding their way up from rock bottom
returning veterans with health issues and few resources

Despite the immense challenges before us, we indeed have much to look forward to this year. The need is great, but our neighborhood, when we work together, is greater.
Together, you, our Board, our staff, our volunteers, our partners, we can fight food insecurity and win – if we are faithful to the work and to one another.

This is the time for stepping up. If you haven’t given in a while, now is a great time to give what you can. If you have given sporadically, make this the year you give on a recurring basis. If you have given on a recurring basis, see if you can give a little more. And, whatever you do, we look forward to having you with us as move into the future –

with faithfulness to being Neighbors Helping Neighbors and whatever that may bring.

Faithfully,

Rev. Dr Lisa Heilig,

Executive Director

It is that time of year again!
One of the very best ways to support us in our mission and help us fight food insecurity in our neighborhood is to support us in the Atlanta Community Food Bank Hunger Walk Run.
This year, the Hunger Walk is on March 10 and Team THCA will once again be active in raising funds and having fun!
If we can raise all of our funds online, 100% of that will go into our account for purchase of food from the Food Bank.

And this is truly an event everyone can participate in some way. If you can’t raise funds and walk for Team THCA, you can donate. If you can’t donate a lot, a little will go a long way, as food is usually 8 cents a pound at the Food Bank. You can donate to the team at large or to a specific team member. You can even start your own team from your faith community, school, workplace, or community association to raise funds for THCA. And, you don’t have to actually walk at the event held downtown; you can walk in your own neighborhood!

For information on Team THCA and to donate, here is the link.
For general information on the Hunger Walk, here is the link.
If you have any questions or need help, feel free to reach out to any of our THCA staff. Executive Director email is [email protected]

Let’s make this the year we break our fundraising records for the Atlanta Community Food Bank Hunger Walk Run!

IT’S HERE –
Our new, updated website
is here and live!
It still in progress, but you will find: new, updated pictures and video
a whole page for nutrition resources and the ability to translate the website into Spanish
tocohillsalliance.org

Looking Forward to 2024!