In the Summer of 2021, the Conejo Valley Rotary Club, set out to continue and expand our Annual Thanksgiving Meal Distribution. The annual mission of the distribution is to help rebuild local communities by connecting families to their impoverished neighbors in need. We identified families in need through local charities including CancerFit, Conejo Community Outreach, and The Bumblebee Foundation.
In 2020, we had cooked and served about 1,260 meals and in 2021 we set out to double the meals cooked and delivered. All in all, with the help of Group 4 Rotary Clubs, other District 5240 Rotary Clubs such as RC Simi Sunset, D2 Giving Inc, and local Rotaract and Interact Clubs we nearly tripled our production and cooked and delivered over 3,300 meals.
Each dinner box, paid for by a tax-deductible donation of $70, was designed to feed on average a family of 7 for 3 days and included 1 deep fried turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, green beans, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and dessert pies!
To achieve this high production of meals we assigned roles to everyone in our Club and asked Rotarians and the community to help in 3 different ways. They could help by donating money to cover the costs of food and supplies, volunteer helping cook pack or deliver meals, and by lending equipment needed such as propane tanks, stoves, boxes, coolers, etc.
Rotarians and donors could donate by check or online through our Club Runner credit card portal which allowed for more people and businesses to donate easily. We set a deadline for all donations and volunteering and required that those who distributed meals were accompanied by a Rotarian.
The communitiesโ generous actions and donations ๐๐๐ก๐ฅ๐๐ ๐ช๐จ ๐๐ง๐๐๐๐ฉ๐๐ฃ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ก๐๐ซ๐๐จ ๐ค๐ ๐ก๐ค๐๐๐ก ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐ง๐๐ฃ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐๐ช๐ก๐ฉ๐จ ๐จ๐ช๐๐๐๐ง๐๐ฃ๐ from cancer and many others in dire need.
HUGE THANK YOU TO ๐๐ข๐ก๐๐๐ข ๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐ฌ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฌ ๐๐๐จ๐, ๐๐ข๐๐๐ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ก๐ฆ of Rotary District 5240, ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ฎ ๐๐๐ฉ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ก๐ FOR YOUR HUGE HEART AND GENEROSITY FOR COOKING AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE MEALS
~ Tim Velasquez (President - Conejo Valley Rotary Club 2021-2022)
