The Camden Promise and Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless Announce Fifth Annual Food Shelf Challenge Grant

In Minnesota, summer means trips to the lake, long bike rides, and fresh produce. But many Minnesota families can’t afford weekly trips to the farmer’s market for fruits and vegetables. The Camden Promise Food Shelf helps provide nutritious fruits and vegetables to these families and needs your help this summer. Donations in July will be matched by Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless to help end hunger in the Camden Community.

Minneapolis, MN —(July 1, 2014)— The Camden Promise and Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless announce the Fifth Annual $150,000 Food Shelf Challenge Grant. Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless will match donations to The Camden Promise during the month of July, up to $5,000. The more funds The Camden Promise raises in July, the larger the matching grant from Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless will be. In 2013, Minnesota food shelves raised over $1,000,000 with this grant and hope to raise even more this year.

Help The Camden Promise reach our goal of $10,000 or pounds of food in one of two ways:

• Donate online at www.thecamdenpromise.org and encourage your friends to do the same;
  
• Host a food drive at your place of employment or worship. 

Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless believes this approach to hunger alleviation is effective because it brings communities together to solve a growing concern across Minnesota. The $150,000 Challenge will power a statewide initiative that leverages Open Your Heart funding to bring additional dollars to food shelves and increase awareness of child hunger during the summer. Since 1986, Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless has targeted millions of dollars to strategically fight hunger in Minnesota. Open Your Heart funds the purchase and transfer of more than one million pounds of fresh produce, meat and dairy products every year through Hunger Solutions Minnesota.

FOOD SHELVES FILL EMPTY PLATES EVERY SUMMER

Minnesota food shelves help families obtain the groceries they cannot afford to purchase on their own. People served by food shelves report having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities and other necessities. “I know that my kids are not the best behaved...but you still let them eat during the summer. That means a lot to me. My kids are safe and fed.” A Neighborhood Mom

Summer is especially stressful for both families with children and the food shelves that serve them. Every day, 3,500 Minnesota children are served by food shelves. For many kids, being home from school for the summer means they miss out on school meal programs as well. Food shelves help fill this gap.

The Camden Promise provides a Client Choice Food Shelf the first and third Saturday of each month; Perishable Food Distributions weekly on Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s; community wide Hot Dog BBQ’s each Wednesday evening; lunch Monday – Friday; Breakfast-and-a-Bag every Sunday. In addition to our food programs, The Camden Promise programming includes Awesome Summer Kids, and enrichment program for children grades kindergarten to 6th grade.

ABOUT THE CAMDEN PROMISE

Since 2010, The Camden Promise has been addressing hunger in the Camden Community of North Minneapolis. The Camden Promise was launched by Gethsemane Lutheran Church as an outreach ministry in collaboration with our partner congregations. Current Camden Promise partners include
Nu Way Baptist Church, Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church and community volunteers as we serve our surrounding neighbors modeling our name and tagline, The Camden Promise, Building Hope...Together.

The Camden Promise mission is to engage people where they are at – one person at a time – restoring trust, building hope and growing an empowered community. We envision a safe community filled with hearts willing to serve one another. We see our neighborhood vibrant, abundant and connected.

The Camden Promise is a 501 (C) 3 nonprofit and is located at 4656 Colfax Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55412. For more information: http://www.thecamdenpromise.org

ABOUT OPEN YOUR HEART TO THE HUNGRY AND HOMELESS

Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless has 28 years of experience as the only grant provider in Minnesota focused solely on alleviating hunger and homelessness. Open Your Heart helps food and shelter providers of all sizes get the resources they need to serve more people, including mattresses, freezers, fresh produce and roof repairs. They also support homeless students by providing school supplies, activity fees, gym shoes, tutoring materials and other essentials that help them engage fully in school. For more information: http://www.oyh.org/ 

Long lines provide an opportunity for neighbors to visit with new friends. The parking lot was filled with children playing basketball, bouncing in the Bounce House, jumping and running around. Music was provided by our own DJ Jeff Johnson. Volunteers gave away books collected by Target Knollwood and Minnetonka to all attendees. Fresh produce was available thanks to Cub Foods and Second Harvest Heartland.

Rev. Willie McAffee (right front) and members of NuWay Missionary Baptist Church treated the community to their famous BBQ ribs and chicken at the Annual Block Party. 

Volunteers continue to be the heart of The Camden Promise. Over 35 volunteers were involved with the set up, welcoming, grilling, serving and clean up of our Annual Block Party. TCP program clients continue to volunteer, a way for them to give back to their community. The majority of volunteers continue to come from within the three partner congregations. We welcome new volunteers all the time. Visit www.thecamdenpromise.org for a complete list of our volunteer opportunities.

University of MN students signed up community members for interviews about food purchasing habits. Participants were given $240 Cub Foods gift cards.  This is just another example of how our community is helping to improve the lives of their neighbors.

The Camden Promise (TCP) had a busy and very successful summer. We have accomplished a lot in our Camden Community. Your volunteer efforts and donations have made this all possible. Thank you for your support. Many of our activities are highlighted inside.

Fall brings change and The Camden Promise is no different. We say farewell and thanks to two Board members, Ben Beard and Paul Cederberg. They will continue to support TCP by working on special projects.

We are excited about some new developments. We have:

·     received a $10,000+ grant from Community POWER

·     hired an Executive Director

·     increased our Breakfast and a Bag program to weekly
·     started exploring a revised jobs readiness program and addressing housing of the community.

We look forward to seeing all of you at The Camden Promise soon.

Ben Knaus, TCP Board Chair    

Nutritious food, happy kids, good jobs and safe, affordable homes...these are the key components of a thriving neighborhood. Absent even one component and the neighborhood suffers. Add to it a leadership vacuum and a culture of disempowerment and the effects of urban decay take their toll on our North Minneapolis streets.  Here at The Camden Promise, we do more than make a stand against poor health, violence by our own against our own, lack of employable skills and condemned houses.  We advocate and provide for full tummies, we encourage  successful kids, we help people recognize and develop their employable skills and we explore ways to bridge the home ownership gap. We do all of this through the catalyst of community: People knowing and trusting each other working together for the good of our neighborhood.

We believe that we can build hope together. We believe that God has plans to give us a hope and a future and that with us and through us God will prosper all the Camden community. I am pleased to be a part of God's work in our neighborhood as the new Executive Director. I hope that together, we will fan the flames of community until Camden is transformed into a parish even more 

Have you heard of the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive run by the United States Postal Service? It's an amazing food drive.  The benefits of this food drive have trickled down to The Camden Promise!  

We currently have 5 pallet-sized totes in the garage at The Camden Promise.  Each tote is about 1000 pounds.  That 1/2 ton of food per pallet.  Food that people set out on their doorsteps.  Food that letter carriers picked-up.  Food that will be sorted and sent out to people in the Camden community.  Food that will feed a 6 year old.  Food that will let a mom put gas in her car.  Food that will let a dad focus on working.  Food that is quite simply God's blessing.

Oh, and there are 5 more totes coming!!!  That's another 5000 pounds of food.  So, if my math is correct, that's roughly 10,000 pounds of food coming into the food shelf and going out into our community.  Five tons of food.  Wow.  

If you have any time, we need help sorting food.  Please contact Roxi at 612-568-7362.  She'll help you figure out a time for you to dig through the totes and sort food.  

The Spirit Moves 2013 raised over $32,000 for The Camden Promise.  We are so thankful to all of our wonderful supporters.  And thanks to Karin Lynn Photography for capturing so many of these wonderful folks dancing and enjoying the night!!!

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans presented a matching grant check to The Camden Promise for $5000 today.  

The Camden Promise originally wrote a $5000 grant to Thrivent.  We raised an additional $10,000 through fundraisers that made us eligible for the matching funds grant.

Thrivent has been a tremendous sponsor of The Camden Promise through this grant, their work with The Spirit Moves, and being part of our events.  We are thankful for everything that Thrivent has done for us.

A special thank you to Margit Lund, Financial Associate with Thrivent, for her work helping The Camden Promise through the grant process and joining us on a food shelf day to present the check and sort produce!

Pictured left to right: Margit Lund of Thrivent and TCP board members Paul Cederberg, Linda Omark, Joyce Turner, and Ben Knaus

Thank you to Half Price Books!  Today was the Twin Cities edition of the book giveaway. You can read more about it here.

Roxi learned about this event at Gethsemane council meeting, quickly filled out the form, and found someone to pick up the books.

We were able to pick up two boxes of books.  It looks like a good mix of little kid books, bigger kid books, and even a few older kid books.  I'm assuming that they will be used on food shelf days to keep the kids entertained, during the Awesome Summer Kids program, and many other ways.

Next year, we'll be asking for more volunteers to go with so that we can expand our collection.  Mark your calendar!!!

-Ben

So, the new The Camden Promise website is up and running.  I've been told that it is "vibrant" and "upbeat."  It is also "user friendly" and "clean."  It should be easier to navigate, the footer at the bottom of the page has more useful information, and it has a cleaner layout.

I hope you enjoy it.  I'd love your feedback on the comments.

-Ben Knaus

The Camden Promise is hosting a very special worship service.  Please join us on Sunday, December 16 at 3:00 in the afternoon for worship.  The message from Pastor Jeff Nehrbass is the blessing of The Camden Promise and the constant, everyday miracles that happen in our mist.  The service will also include amazing liturgical dancing and a special offering befitting The Camden Promise.

After the service, please stick around for our annual community dinner from 4:00-6:00.  There will be a hearty dinner, a chance to be in fellowship with the community, and tour the food shelf.

The Camden Promise is opening their doors to the community and beyond for this special worship service and dinner.  Please join us.  See the everyday miracles that are happening.  Know the people who are working to make this corner of 47th and Colfax in Minneapolis a blessing to the community.

I hope to see you there!!!

Ben Knaus
Board Chair