Here's what's happening at South SLO County Womenade!
Newsletter July 3, 2023
Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer!
The June Food Distribution to 250 Families
Last Food Pantry for the School Year at Lopez High School
Weekend Food Bags For Food Insecure Students
Second Laundry Pop-Up
Next Potluck – July 20th 6PM in Nipomo
We Missed The Bus – School Supplies for Teachers
The June Food Distribution To Nearly 250 Families
Our monthly team food distribution to families at the Nipomo Elementary School is in summer mode. Although we had fewer families through our lines (this is typical for the first distribution of summer vacation), they were greeted by our great team of volunteers. They received the much loved “breakfast” bags from the SLO Foodbank, each bag containing 21 breakfasts!, plus 1 bag of shelf stable food, a bag of fresh produce, a bag with frozen meat and an additional bag of food provided by Womenade and packed by the volunteers. With school out for the summer the set up is much easier without any cars in the parking lot. The next distribution is July 11th from 4:30 to 6:30 (always the second Tuesday of the month).
Last Food Pantry for the School Year at Lopez High School
All semester South SLO County Womenade has been stocking a Food Pantry for the students in need of food at Lopez High School. The school counselors have organized the pantry and the students took over staffing the pantry every other week through the spring semester. We have emptied the pantry for the summer and will start it up in the fall. At the last food distribution the students gifted us with beautiful hand painted shells with notes of gratitude for the food throughout the spring.
Weekend Food Bags for Food Insecure Students
This program is continuing during the summer vacation months, however somewhat scaled back, as we don’t have a clear distribution path to the students in the summer. We are preparing bags for the SCYC/SAFE programs that are located in the Department of Social Services building in Arroyo Grande. They are continuing to provide weekend food to students in their programs. We have a couple of fabulous volunteers who have signed on to continue this program all summer.
Laundry Pop-Up
On June 29th Belinda Benassi organized a team of 4 volunteers for our second Laundry Pop-Up. She selected the #Laundromat at the corner of Farroll Rd. and 13th Street in Grover Beach. We ran from 3:30PM to 5:30PM intentionally picking a “slow” time of day as we establish our process.
We offered anyone entering the Laundromat to pay for 3 loads of laundry (both washer and dryer) until either our quarters ran out or our time ran out. We repeated the process we used last month, and it went very smoothly. Our volunteers took down some basic information for data tracking and put the quarters in the machines. (We don’t actually DO their laundry!) A few people passed up the offer, telling us to give it to someone who needs it more. Everyone else took us up on our offer. The clients were surprised but very grateful. One woman, a teacher in Lompoc, is moving from Pismo to Nipomo. She was doing the linens from her rental to leave clean linens for her landlord. She was thrilled and said she thought it was a fantastic idea and was grateful for the help. Because it was the “slow” time we only funded about 12 loads of laundry but we were able to perfect our process.
If you would like to volunteer with Belinda Benassi’s team, let us know, and we’ll get your name to her. We typically only need 3 to 4 volunteers each pop-up. Belinda is scoping out Laundromats in Nipomo for our next Laundry Pop-Up in July.
The Next Potluck
Mark your calendar!
July 20th, Thursday at 6pm is the next South SLO County Potluck at Deb Sherry’s home at 1671 Primavera Lane in Nipomo
The Evites are going out on July 6th. If you don’t receive one and would like to attend please email us at sslocwomenade@gmail.com. If you would like to host a potluck fundraiser for us, please let us know. These are our main methods of fundraising. We would love a host for September/October! Please help us spread the word!
Happenings
We Missed the Bus - School Supplies for Teachers!
This year the leaders of “We Love Educators”, Lisa Arakaki, Piper Adelman, Marguerite McCurley, Kim Heyde and Sharon McDaniel are leading our teachers’ school supplies drive. Students have many avenues to receive school supplies before the school year. However, teachers are always dipping deep into their pockets to purchase the supplies they need that the school or district doesn’t provide. The average amount that a teacher spends a year is $800 and elementary school teachers even more! In order to take advantage of the sales of school supplies during the summer, we are holding our annual Missed the Bus Drive from July 6 to August 14th. We’re giving a heads up so we can all take advantage of the school supplies sales. The team surveyed the teachers and they came up with this list:
Glue sticks
BABY wipes (to clean their headphones)
Clorox wipes (to clean surfaces)
Blue Painters Tape
Masking Tape
Colored sets for students
Large Sharpies for Poster Board
Dry Erase both Color/Black
Strong Magnets/Magnet Clips
Scotch Laminating Sheets
Durable Folders
Avery Labels 6427
Drop off locations:
Candace Guldeman 524 Mesa View Drive (after May 8th)
FitForever Gym - 1080 Cypress Ridge Parkway, Arroyo Grande
Judy Woo - 1402 Vista Tesoro Pl, Nipomo
Lisa Murdoch – 117 Pearwood Ave. Arroyo Grande
Lola Zybura – 2367 Brant St. (Cypress Ridge), Arroyo Grande
Nan Fowler – 630 Cerro Vista Circle, Arroyo Grande
Stacy Murphy – 1975 Northwood Rd. (Trilogy) Nipomo
Susan McCutcheon – 2342Willet Way (Cypress Ridge), Arroyo Grande
In-Kind Donations
We try to track our in-kind donations but we can’t do that without a receipt from you. Please cut and copy the in-kind receipt below, complete it and send the top half back to us for our records. I can't embed it into my newsletter. You can scan it or email it to us at sslocwomenade@gmail.com.
HOW TO DONATE:
To make a donation write a check to South SLO County Womenade and mail to:
Our bank asked that checks be made out with the full legal name on the account.
South SLO County Womenade, 1793 Farroll Rd., Grover Beach, CA 93433. We encourage you to become one of our monthly or regular donors. This can be easily done through your bank or charitable foundation. Please remember that if your company has a matching grants program to include us. As you make or update your wills/trusts, please consider adding a legacy gift to us for our future sustainability.
or go to our website sslocw.org
Our email is: sslocwomenade@gmail.com
Our website is: sslocw.org
Our EIN# 27-0809744
Phone number: (805) 270-5751
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South SLO County Womenade1793 Farroll Rd. Grover Beach, CA 93433