Volunteer Newsletter – January 2025
Welcome to 2025!
I am reactivating our monthly Volunteer Newsletter and hope you will find it informative, factual, fun and fancy-free! Please expect to receive it in your inbox by the end of each month.
Talk about getting in under the wire!! This first one is intentionally jammed packed!
Each month I would like to highlight a volunteer or two (with permission) and a staff member. Without naming names, I know that we have volunteers who sing with Rock Voices and other local singing groups; we have an oboist married to a bassoonist; a published mystery writer; a dancer (formerly a Professor of Dance); a trumpet player in the Florence Community Band and much more!
Please let me know if you’d like to be included in a future newsletter.
With a staff of 10 and a volunteer team of 250+ there will hopefully be endless spotlights!
I’ll also be including some statistics month to month along with pertinent information revolving around food distribution to the clients we serve as well as new program initiatives.
Some information, such as closing dates for holidays and inclement weather policy, may be duplicated information which you can also find on the Better Impact homepage.
Better Impact is the volunteer database where the schedule is posted and where volunteers can sign themselves up or remove themselves from a shift. Please familiarize yourself with the site if you haven’t done so already.
Better Impact link
https://app.betterimpact.com/Login/LoginNoSearch?agencyGuid=65faad77-baa1-465f-99d7-fe0303e55ac6
Winter advisories info
The Northampton Survival Center closes on any day that the Northampton Public Schools close due to inclement weather, and our Hilltown Pantry in Goshen closes on any day that Hampshire Regional schools close due to inclement weather.
In the case of a public school delay, the Center will endeavor to open on time or as soon thereafter as safe and practical. When in doubt, call ahead. For any closures, a notice will be posted on our homepage and on our voicemail. If we have a snow day, our schedule will remain the same for the rest of the week, no adjustments will be made to our pantry schedule.
https://www.northamptonsurvival.org/contact-and-hours/
Closed dates for calendar year link
https://www.northamptonsurvival.org/contact-and-hours/
In the past, new volunteers received a Volunteer Handbook along with a name tag on their first shift.We have been updating the handbook over the past months and you can now access it online. If you would like a paper copy, I am happy to give you one.
Volunteer Handbook
https://www.northamptonsurvival.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NSC-Volunteer-Handbook-January-2025.pdf
January Volunteer Highlight
Michael Filas has been collecting the Stop & Shop donations on Fridays for a couple decades, and he hopes to do it for a couple more. Seeing the dedicated crew at the Survival Center each Friday is a bright spot in his week. He also helps organize a friendly community soccer game at Sheldon field every Sunday. All skill levels are welcome. And, Michael enjoys participating and helping to organize Connecticut River Cleanups in the Northampton Meadows. He’d love to hear from you if you are interested in soccer or helping out with a Meadows cleanup next time one is scheduled, mfilas@westfield.ma.edu.
January Staff Highlight
Chris Oakley is our fearless Office Manager who brings many skills to his everyday work here at the Center. He is a self-proclaimed maker, who enjoys creating everything from baked goods and costumes, to growing beautiful flowers and working on home improvement projects. Most of this spirit of creation comes from his time working as a professional circus and burlesque performer for the last 20 years. When he met his husband, Arlo, 16 years ago, they started a local entertainment company in the Valley called House of Hors (based on Arlo’s character, Hors D’oeuvres) and they have produced hundreds of burlesque, drag, circus, charity, trivia, and bingo shows in the past 15 years. These shows focus on creating queer community, body positivity, and an open space for people to feel safe and have a good time. They’re currently working on a new game show for the Valley and are excited to bring it to life this year! Interested in tickets? Visit us at www.houseofhors.com
Statistics and Information
Food we purchased or received as donations in a 30 day period (data for December 2024.)
- 85,900 pounds of food (21,475 lbs per week) received and /or purchased from community donations, retail donations, produce/dairy, Food Bank and Aldis. We have recently started receiving donations from Walmart this month.
- We continue to distribute /deliver close to 15,000 pounds of food each week to our clients throughout the 18 communities we serve!
For the month of December in both Northampton and Goshen we saw:
- 973 households which translates to 1908 individuals
- We served 4,792 individuals (this includes repeat visits so if someone comes every week they will be counted each time in this number)
- We gave out 228 pantry fresh bags**
**What’s a Pantry Fresh bag, our non-packing volunteers may ask? The idea was first suggested by some members of our client advisory committee. Yes, we receive and welcome feedback from clients and volunteers! Volunteers are sometimes clients. Pantry Fresh is a meal kit which includes a recipe and ingredients which we change-up every month and offer to all clients once a month.
We try to create the recipe using items we can source in large quantities from the Food Bank. Additional items we have purchased in the past necessary for the recipe have included ground meat, eggs, spices, broth and lots of fresh produce. Perhaps you’d like to try it yourself sometime. Here is the link to the current and past Pantry Fresh recipes:
Pantry Fresh recipe link
https://www.northamptonsurvival.org/pantryfresh/
Additional Outreach from the Center
In addition to this new monthly volunteer newsletter endeavor, we have had a client newsletter written by our Pantry Coordinator, Kilee, and formerly Liv, for some time now. Interested in taking a peek?
Client newsletter link
https://www.northamptonsurvival.org/pantry-digest/
And that brings us to our quarterly newsletter which is sent to all volunteers, board members and donors. Danielle, our Donor Relations Director and Heidi, our Executive Director excel at designing and procuring this informative ….
NSC quarterly newsletter link
https://www.northamptonsurvival.org/learnmore/publications/
Along with our ongoing client outreach, yours truly is always managing Volunteer outreach. Most recently I did a presentation on behalf of NSC at the MLK service day fair at Bombyx.
MLK Day is a chance to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by coming together on January 20th in service to our communities. It’s a day to reflect on his vision of equality and justice while making a tangible difference. Whether through organizing donations, mentoring, cleaning up local spaces, or supporting neighbors in need, every act of service brings us closer to his dream. Join others across the nation in turning this day into a day “on” instead of a day off by volunteering to create positive change.
Volunteer applications arrive via our website almost daily. Numerous volunteer orientations take place on an almost weekly basis. Lots of volunteers come to us through word of mouth and often from your own friends, family members and acquaintances who have committed their time to help us fulfill our mission. Do you know someone wanting to get involved? Send them my way!
Some of our volunteers work for companies who offer service days to employees. Perhaps yours does too?
We occasionally have Smith students lending a hand and others fulfilling community service obligations.
We currently have 277 active volunteers. That number increases every year as we get closer to our annual Post Office Food Drive event held here at NSC on the 2nd Saturday of each May. It’s never too early to mark your calendar. Saturday, May 10th 10-7pm.
T-shirt Update
The Center is currently working on new branded options for volunteers. Stay tuned for more news in 2025!
This concludes the first monthly installment of the volunteer newsletter. Let me know what you think! And please feel free to contribute ideas, uplifting quotes, and questions. We strive to keep growing and evolving our program so it best serves and meets the interests and needs of our clients. You are all a part of that mission and the staff thanks you!!
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” — Aesop
Diane Drohan
Volunteer Manager
Northampton Survival Center
265 Prospect Street
Northampton, MA 01060
413-586-6564
diane@northamptonsurvival.org