Preschooler cashes in piggy bank to feed the hungry

After a special grocery shopping trip, and making a few cashiers cry, Emma Alter donated 155 pounds of food to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf on Feb. 23.

Vermont Giving Season gifts down

“We know that the economy plays a big roll in donations’ being down,” Meehan said. “So it means even more that so many people have reached out during the Giving Season in these hard times. We have a huge challenge ahead and many people to feed.”

Community Kitchen Students Graduate 14-week Training Program

When 100% of an education program’s class graduates it’s an impressive thing. Today one hundred percent of the Community Kitchen class in Burlington, Vt. did just that.

UVM Med Students Help Food Shelf Increase Healthy Donations

The students have created a simple yet effective program to benefit the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. They created tags to go in front of certain store items to encourage shoppers to chose healthier items to donate.

Food shelf offers up a side of confidence

Single mom Kendra Payea was unemployed, living in a shelter and deeply dependent on state assistance last year when she was recruited to join a culinary training program at The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf.

GOOD WORKS: Record haul for food shelf

Vermont Federal Credit Union joined radio stations 99.9 The Buzz and 106.7 WIZN last month at Costco in Colchester to help collect food for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf and provided sponsorship as part of the Feed Your Neighbor Campaign.

Scuffer campaign benefits Chitt. Emergency Food Shelf

An effort to collect food for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf could mean a meal at the Scuffer Steak & Ale House, if your team gathers the most food.

Editorial: Season showcases Vermont’s generosity

This year’s Giving Season recipient agencies are the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf, Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS), the heating assistance program WARMTH and the Vermont National Guard Charitable Foundation.

Giving Season kicks off

The Giving Season is The Burlington Free Press’ annual holiday campaign to help our community through raising awareness and money in support of local nonprofits. Now, in its 16th year, the campaign continues through New Year’s Day. The campaign’s longstanding core agencies are: the Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS), the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf, and WARMTH, which provides heating assistance.

Food Banks Report Surge in First Timers

Shelves are stocked at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf in Burlington, Vt., Wednesday. Around Vermont, demand is up at food shelves as Vermonters lose jobs, try to make ends meet on unemployment and struggle with heating, food and fuel costs.

Turkey Bowl No. 50

The 50th game is a special one, with a pre-game party Wednesday night and a commitment from the players to donate 50 turkeys to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf.

Demand up at Vermont food shelves

The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf in Burlington has been serving 1,000 more individuals each year for the past two years, with a rise in the number of people recently laid off and refugees and immigrants using the services, said executive director Rob Meehan.

Hunger on the rise in Vermont

A Bellows Falls drop-in center has served 53 percent more meals in the last year while the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf in Burlington, the largest food distribution outlet in the state, had 1,000 more people coming in for help this year, Sayles said.

Chittenden Food Shelf hits turkey goal

The food shelf met its goal of collecting 2,700 turkeys late Friday, development and communications director Rachel Moss said. “The outpouring was really amazing,” she said. The food shelf, though, will continue to collect turkeys, and all food and monetary donations, to help people get through the winter, Moss said.

Economy Takes Toll In Fight Against Hunger

Food Shelf Director Rob Meehan says he’s never seen such a surge in clients coming through his door as he has this fall, while at the same time, proceeds from area food donation drives are down. With six days remaining in the agency’s Thanksgiving turkey drive, only 650 of the 2,700 frozen birds needed has materialized.

Donations needed for local coat drive

Busse said the demand is high this year and donations have been down. Last year Gadues distributed about 2,400 coats to agencies like the Howard Center, the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf and COTS.

Turkey Meter

The Chittenden County Emergency Food Shelf is collecting donations of turkeys for the Thanksgiving dinners of low-income families. So far the food shelf has 497 in the pile.

Local Food Shelf Needs Your Help

The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf is beginning its annual turkey drive, but workers there said it’s been a hard year, with more people than normal coming in for food and only half the donations of last year.

Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf needs turkeys

The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf is renewing its call to the community to help provide turkeys for over 2,700 families in Chittenden County.

GOOD WORKS: Otter Creek, Kids CAN Help make differences

Otter Creek Awnings, Sunrooms & Custom Closets of Williston is sponsoring the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf using Facebook to help raise awareness about hunger in the region.

Candles & Creations bash supports food shelf

Candles & Creations is turning 2 and will celebrate from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. The store is kicking off the event with a food drive for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf.

Light shopping at food bank

Vermonters with scrape-bottom disposable incomes now can help themselves to the most modest of those savings — the CFLs — through the collaborative efforts of Efficiency Vermont (which procured 15,000 bulbs at discounted rates for the project) and the Vermont Food Bank (which distributes food and household items at no cost to its 280-member statewide network).

CFL bulbs arrive at Chittenden Food Shelf

Next to the toothpaste and below the sunscreen at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf, hundreds of compact fluorescent light bulbs have found display space.

Light Bulbs Donated to Vermont Food Shelf

Thursday, Efficiency Vermont donated 15,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs to the Vermont Food Bank. In Burlington, the light bulbs are now available to people shopping in the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf’s pantry.

Food Banks Prepare for Swine Flu Outbreak

At the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf in Burlington, organizers are checking the inventory.

This fall and winter, boxes originally created for natural disasters, will be used during an expected H1N1 outbreak to feed people too sick to pick supplies up at a food shelf.

Apples for everyone, pick for your neighbor

To contribute to Pick For Your Neighbor, all people need to do is head to a nearby participating orchard like Adams in Williston, Hackett’s in South Hero, or Shelburne Orchards and pick and pay for an extra bag or two of apples, which will be stored for later pick-up by the Foodbank.

HUNGRY VERMONTERS GET IN LINE

Down the street at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf, some 12,000 Vermonters are expected to pick up provisions by the end of this year. That’s not counting the 200 or so who show up for a daily handout of bread and produce, or the 50-plus who eat a morning meal at the Food Shelf’s soup kitchen every weekday.

FARE SHOT

Community Kitchen opens the food-service field — and NECI — to more Vermonters

First Community Kitchen Grads Prepare for Jobs

The distance from the seats to the podium in Burlington’s Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf for new graduates Friday was less than 25 feet. But one look at their faces and you realized the journey they took to get there was a lot longer.

City Market customers donate 500lbs of food to Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf

City Market customers helped to donate 530lbs of food to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf at the first of three Fill a Truck for Hunger food drives.

CHEESE TRADERS FIGHTS HUNGER

Cheese Traders and Wine Sellers is challenging its patrons and the community at large to chip in and fight hunger in Chittenden County.

Letter Carriers Aim to Stamp Out Hunger

Letter carriers won’t just be picking up your mail this weekend — they’ll also be picking up food donations. Saturday marks the annual U.S. Post Office food drive. People can leave non-perishable food at their mail boxes, and carriers will deliver it to a local food shelf.

Essex students ask: Who ate my homework?

Sixth-grade students at Essex Middle School learn how to bake bread. They each made a loaf for their family and a loaf to donate to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf in Burlington.

Food shelf needs money for new dishwasher

BURLINGTON — The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf is appealing to the public to help it raise $10,000 to replace a broken commercial dishwasher, officials for the organization said today.

Feast Against Famine raises $28,000 for Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf

March 19, 2009
Over 250 people attended the “Feast Against Famine” at the Doubletree Hotel in South Burlington. The St. Patrick’s Day themed event raised $28,000 for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. Major sponsors of the event included Northfield Savings Bank, O’Brien Brothers, F&M Development, Chittenden Bank and MicroBrightField. Northfield Savings Bank employees Kathy LaCross, Tracy [...]

A cooking class for mamas

March 11, 2009
Burlington Free Press
By Sally Pollak
Carol McCann was volunteering at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf when she learned about a culinary job training program that would be offered at the Burlington nonprofit.
The Colchester woman, who calls herself a “Jill of all trades,” was out of work at the time and applied for the program. [...]

Many Honor Dr. King By Volunteering

Tues., Jan. 20, 2009
WPTZ-TV
BURLINGTON, Vt. – Hundreds of people jammed City Hall in Burlington Monday to volunteer their help for charity, many more that organizers at the annual MLK day of service were prepared for.
“This is crazy turnout,” said AmeriCorps organizer Emily Eschner as she looked out at the crowd that filled every available slot [...]