November Beyond Belief Network Roundup!
By GO HumanityWe just finished rounding up reports of what teams in our volunteer network did for their communities in November!
A few of these teams have asked for help collecting holiday donations to grow their impact. In the roundup below, we’ve linked to their fundraiser pages and mentioned what kind of presents you can give them!
We saw a boost in the number of events held by teams in November thanks to Thanksgiving.
Teams in our Food Security Project (FSP) held 49 events (8 more than in October) serving 12,526 individual beneficiaries! Additional teams in the Beyond Belief Network held 9 more events.
Here’s how that broke down:
Kenya Humanist Alliance
This team – winners of November’s Picture of the Month – have been…
- Harvesting maize from their farmland to feed people in their rural community. (They collected 5 bags of maize in November weighing about 69kg each.)
- Starting a new chicken farm to supply eggs to orphans living in impoverished conditions
- Visiting incarcerated people, offering words of encouragement and giving them guidance on vocational training upon release
- Harvesting and supplying fresh produce to elderly widows (25kg given away in November)
What they want for the holidays: more chickens and to build a shelter for the orphans to improve their living conditions. Contribute here.
North Orlando Oasis
This Florida group nabbed Team of the Month for their work buying produce from local organic farms and delivering it to shelters! They met three times for this in November, delivering 22 25-pound boxes plus 50 additional meals to the Harbor House of Central Florida.
What they want for the holidays: help paying for a refrigerator, sorting table, and (eventually) a permanent space. We’ve started a fundraiser for them here.
Austin Atheists Helping the Homeless
This highly active Food Security Project team packed and gave out 160 bags of food and material aid to unsheltered people, including 160 month-long bus passes and an assortment of water jugs, sleeping bags, and winter warmth items. They distributed everything under a local highway bridge where they hold their giveaway events monthly, and tried out a new locale recommended to them by other local orgs. They found they were able to make a worthwhile impact there due to the number of folks living in the nearby woods and will likely incorporate it into their routine.
What they want for the holidays: help buying winter gear that can easily be carried by unsheltered people impacted by the city’s camping ban.
Southeastern Virginia Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists
Along with other organizations, SEVASH built and maintains two free food pantry boxes in the towns of Newport News and Norfolk where people give what they take and take what they need.
6 known volunteers (which grew to 7 this month) contributed 355 pounds of food to the pantries. (Funds from our Food Security Project helped them better reimburse their contributors.)
Atheists United
This Los Angeles FSP team sorted groceries, packed them into 137 food 24-pound food kits, and handed them out during their monthly giveaway in Historic Filipinotown
They also chipped in 7.5 hours of work recording podcast segments for Audio Information Network of Colorado, during which volunteers read aloud print ads for people with visual impairments.
Austin Texas Humanists At Work
This team held a big slate of events for November, including:
- An emergency food donation of two weeks’ worth of food to a home with a recent medical emergency
- Serving warm bagels, cream cheese, and peanut butter to people experiencing homelessness. (The team said these folks were extra hungry having been pushed into the woods by the city’s camping ban.)
- Distributing food to 10 households at an affordable housing community
- Serving hearty hot breakfasts to at least 100 people through Mosaic Street Ministry
- Making three home food deliveries through their Pantry Run program, including one with a cooked turkey that made children literally jump with joy!
- A monthly giveaway of hygiene supplies, undergarments, and other essentials to people experiencing homelessness
What they want for the holidays: help funding their new food pantry program (which is already providing over 400 meals a month)!
Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix
A small team of volunteers worked at St. Mary’s Food Bank, packing 1,548 boxes of food in just one shift! Simultaneously, they launched a campaign to collect cash donations for 100 turkeys, netting enough to buy 125 in just over a week! The campaign spontaneously inspired one of their members to donate $1,000 directly to the food bank.
HSGP has also been holding monthly blood drives at the request of their local Red Cross. Last month they filled 37 out of their goal of 38 appointment slots! The team said this was an amazing number considering a marathon had shut down roads and their regular donors weren’t able to give so soon after their last drive.
Humanist Alliance Philippines International
This highly active team supplied hundreds of kids from low-income families with essentials like meals, snacks, clothes, and masks. They also threw kids a Filipino Halloween party and held a large class about color theory and creativity!
Central Ohio United Non-Theists
COUNT volunteers assisted with food prep, service, and cleanup at Columbus’ Van Buren Center! Later, they got together for their monthly blood drive and helped adaptive athletes to kayak through Adaptive Sports Connection (ASC). To date, their volunteers have given 1,259 volunteer hours to the shelter, 258 to the ASC, and 225 to blood drives!
Atheist Community of Polk County
These Florida volunteers…
- Met three times for their Weekends Without Hunger program which provides food supplies to elementary students experiencing food insecurity
- Met four times for Street Warriors, a service project wherein volunteers bring bags of aid to people experiencing homelessness
- Met once for a routine cleanup of their adopted highway
What they want for the holidays: funds to start a Weekends Without Hunger program in a new town. Donate here.
Central Florida Freethought Community
These volunteers removed trash from their adopted two-mile stretch of highway!
Northwest Chicagoland Humanist Crew
These volunteers also got in on the adopt-a-highway cleanup action!
Humanists of Tallahassee
This FSP team collaborated five times with a local church to distribute snack packs and hygiene products to unhoused neighbors. Packs consisted of granola bars, water, applesauce, pudding, peanut butter crackers, Vienna sausages, washcloth, soap, shampoo, deodorant, razors, toothbrushes, toothpaste, socks, and menstrual products!
They also met up to clean up litter from a local lake and collect food and clothing for other charities.
Food Rescue Alliance teams
Four of affiliates of our major grantee Food Rescue Alliance are among the volunteer teams receiving grants in the Food Security Project. Here’s what they’ve been up to:
360 Eats
This Florida group met six times to pack and serve meals to people experiencing food insecurity in partnership with neighborhood community centers. Their impact ranged between 40 and 200 people per food service!
CORMII Community Development Corporation
This North Carolina team meets each Thursday for an evening curbside food distribution. In November, they packed and gave out 496 meals (59 of which were purchased with the help of the FSP grant)!
What they want for the holidays: help starting up a mobile soup kitchen and warmth items for people experiencing homelessness.
The Food Drive
This Melrose, Massachusetts team distributed 23,000 pounds of food in 10 communities in November! This included 205 turkeys given to a food pantry; a pie drive for low-income housing residents; full Thanksgiving meals for folks in motel shelters; and the bounty from two Thanksgiving pantry drives. Other beneficiaries included senior housing facilities and a smattering of other groups that provide food relief.
What they want for the holidays: contributions to help them start a mobile soup kitchen. You can also buy warmth items for unsheltered people via their Amazon wish list!
CAFE Food Rescue
This Summit County, Colorado team has an ongoing project collecting food at a local Starbucks and making it available via coolers in a community care clinic. They also delivered some food to a church for a community dinner and to a women’s shelter. About 800 pounds were collected and distributed altogether in November.
They’re setting up meetings with more social service organizations and working with colleagues to expand into more collections. They just bought a URL and are working on their first website!
What they want for the holidays: contributions to pay a staff member to rapidly grow their programs, plus save up for a refrigerated truck!
Sponsor one of these hard-working teams by setting up a recurring donation of $100 per month.