Exciting times!

The start of a new year has brought lots of excitement to Shared Harvest! Monday marked the kick off of the "Fill that Bus!" food drive in the Hamilton City School District. It took nearly all day, but Alex and I delivered 17 barrels and 400 boxes to all of the schools and education offices in the district. I believe this is the first district-wide food drive that's been done with Shared Harvest, and we can't wait to see how much is collected. This will definitely help re-stock the shelves at our partner agencies after the holidays.

On Tuesday we did a few final snowy food drive pick ups at Totes International, Greentree Health Science Academy, Wildwood Elementary, and Northrop Grumman. I was looking back at the past few months, and I did a little number crunching. Between October and December, I picked up 28,412 pounds of food with either Alex, Holli, Mary, Joe, or even Taylor, at about 65 different locations! And with each pound of food valued at $1, that equals $28,412!

Many other locations donated food during the 2009 holiday season, as well. All in all, Holli informed me that the 2009 Holiday Aid Food Drive brought in a total of 49,510 pounds of food, which is 7,350 pounds more than during the 2008 holiday season.

Alex and I would like to think we had something to do with the increase in donations this year, but we know that the real reason for the increase was the tremendous generosity of the community. Thank you to all of the area businesses, schools, and churches who worked so hard to collect so much food! We are so appreciative for your support, and we hope you will hold many more food drives with Shared Harvest in the future, including outside of the holiday season.

As I mentioned near the top of the post, these were our final food drive pick ups for the season. This fact brings mixed emotions to our office. On the one hand, we are relieved to be finished with all of the heavy lifting, but we'll certainly miss our adventures with Gus. Like it or not, the holiday food drive is over and tax season is here, so it was time to say good bye to our little bus friend. Check out our final picture with Gus on Alex's blog.

Wednesday had its fair share of excitement, as well. The CheckOut Hunger drive officially ended last week, so it was time to collect the coupon placards and get them ready for next year. Part of the job included removing adhesive from the placards so that they are ready for next year's set of coupons to be attached. We constructed an adhesive removal tool out of a razor blade and duct tape, but clumsy me, I used the tool to slice open my thumb instead of taking off the adhesive! Alex took me to Urgent Care where I received nine stitches and a tetanus shot. It was a pretty minor incident, though my thumb still stings a little and the tetanus shot has made my arm feel like it's full of lead! With the impending snow fall today, I decided to take a few hours off this afternoon to relax at home. Hopefully I'll feel back to my normal self tomorrow, stitches and all!