Ballantyne Families Helping Neighbors In Need

Monthly Newsletter - February 2024

The last few weeks have been busy as Ballantyne Families connected with various local groups: Novant Health Ballantyne Medical Center, the Morrison YMCA, and the Ballantyne Rotary. We love to have opportunities to share our story and educate our community about the needs of our neighbors. Normally, this happens when we go and talk to others, but last month we had a great Open House at our pantry to share more about what we do. Our pantry team will share more about that below.

Our team is working hard filling lots of pantry requests and getting ready for our next giving for spring break.

We have lots of opportunities to get involved. If you would like to help or have a group that we should come and talk with, please let us know.

Thank you for partnering with us to make sure no one goes hungry!

Heather McAfee

Heather@ballantynefamilies.org

PS – Make sure to check out our new website – www.ballantynefamilies.org

Thank You from a Ballantyne Families Recipient

“I am VERY grateful for this blessing! God really blessed your organization to be able to bless my family! I don't even have words to express my gratitude. I am overjoyed!!

Pantry Update

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well" Virginia Woolf said it best. Our families in need are now able to dine well because of your love and support.

We approach this month full of gratitude for all the donations we have received to share with our families. This month alone the Food Pantry has been able to give out over 1500 food items and completed 48 requests for weekly food assistance. Your food and monetary donations along with your volunteer hours make this food pantry successful and help us continue to spread the love and food each week.

The food pantry held its first Open House on January 20th . Despite the frigid temperature that morning we were pleased with the turnout and enjoyed meeting many new people. It was fun to show everyone how the pantry runs and how your donations are used each week! Thanks to all of those that came out.

The Pantry Team,

Erin, Tammy, and Sheilah

Food Drives/Partnership Update

Food Drive:

January and the beginning of February have been busy months for food drives. A big thank you to Community House Middle School Global Studies students for organizing a food drive for their school as well as to Endhaven Elementary for their hugely successful food drive that brought in 1800 items to the pantry.

Thank you to the Kingston Forest neighborhood as well for donating food items to the pantry. A special thank you to Sheila Matthews, Dana McSwain, Katy Flanagan, Tracy Allen, Ann Kendall, Laura Schwab, Lance Brune, Cordelia Wade-Beasley, Brittany Beasley, Francesca Johnson, Lori Hoffman, Tiffany Williams, Ashely Hite, Jodi Pedrotty, Rupali Ekre, and Rebecca Economon from Endhaven Elementary who gave their time to count, sort, and deliver 6 carloads of food to the pantry.

This month Jay M Robinson’s NJHS students are leading a food drive at their school and Polo Ridge Elementary is having a “Love your neighbor” food drive in support of Ballantyne Families. Hawk Ridge Elementary will also be hosting a food drive in connection with their Valentine’s Day Dance!

We are so thankful for all the schools and other community groups that hold food drives to keep our pantry stocked so that we can continue to fill pantry requests for our neighbors in need.

If you are interested in holding a food drive to benefit the Ballantyne Families Pantry, please reach out to Lauren@ballantynefamilies.org.

Thank you to Food Lion for giving us gift cards worth $1000 to purchase food for our pantry.

Thanks to Harris Teeter for donating 100 reusable grocery bags and to Trader Joe’s (Piper Glen) for donating 3 boxes of plastic bags.

Volunteer of the Month

Sheila Matthews

Sheila is one of the Ballantyne Families’ school champions for Endhaven Elementary School. Every school that Ballantyne Families works with has a school champion who helps spread Ballantyne Families’ news through their school communication channels and helps with a school-wide food drive to help replenish our pantry.

When Sheila gets involved, she jumps in with two feet and leads with her heart and passion to help people and make a difference! With the help of Endhaven staff members and parent volunteers, Sheila and team created a food drive competition amongst the grades. Each day food was counted, and the winner received a pizza party! The results of their hard work were outstanding with 6 carloads of food – equaling over 1800 food items!

We are grateful for Sheila’s leadership and creativity to make Endhaven’s food drive a HUGE success! Great job Sheila and team!

Counselor Spotlight

Lisa Smith - Jay M Robinson Middle School Counselor

Some facts from Lisa:

I grew up in the small town of Carthage, North Carolina and graduated from Appalachian State for both my B.A. and my M.A. 
I feel pretty lucky to be married to an App State graduate. We have one son who graduated from App State last year and now works for the university. We love Boone and see ourselves retiring there. 
I love to read, walk the beach, hike the mountains, and spend time with my family.
This will be my 31st year of working as a middle school counselor and my 5th year at Jay M. Robinson.
The thing I love most about being a school counselor is helping others. Working with Ballantyne Families Helping Neighbors in Need has been such a lifeline to several of our families in need. Thanks to each of you who make this organization so amazing.

What's Next

Spring Break Giving – Distribution on March 22nd:

Each identified family will receive a grocery gift card based on family size, a bag of food from the pantry (if they request it), encouraging notes from the community and a resource guide. We are grateful to Brighthouse Financial for generously donating the funds to cover all the grocery gift cards!

Our Needs

1. Volunteer opportunities for you and/or your children, go to www.tinyurl.com/bfvolunteers2023-2024.

Areas where we really need volunteers:

- Please see 3/21 and 3/22 on sign up. We need help on these two days to get ready for and distribute our spring break giving.

- Please see 3/8 and 5/17 on sign up. We need volunteers to decorate envelopes (provided) and write encouraging notes to accompany gift cards that are part of our spring break and summer givings.

2. People Needs:

-Google Workspace - If you have IT experience with the Google Admin Console, we'd love a volunteer who can take a look at our current set up and assist with backend modifications. Please contact Kerry Price Doub at 704-287-5384 or kerrydoub@gmail.com

-Organized, detail oriented and technology savvy - We need help with getting our organization running as smoothly as possible. If interested, please contact Heather at heather@ballantynefamilies.org

-Marketing/Public Relations – We need expertise in looking at our entire branding to make sure that everything aligns and that we are doing everything that we should. If interested, please contact Heather at heather@ballantynefamilies.org

-People Connectors – We need people to join our grants and corporate relations team. Looking for people who are willing to look for grant opportunities with local companies and also connect with different Charlotte charities who give donations to nonprofits like Ballantyne Families. You don’t have to have experience – just the willingness to try! If interested, please contact Heather at heather@ballantynefamilies.org.

3. Corporate Sponsors – does your company provide help to local nonprofits? We need corporate sponsors to help with our summer food support. We estimate that we will need to raise over $50,000 to fill all the slots for the identified families. Please email heather@ballantynefamilies if you have questions or think that your company could help.

4.Purchase items – Amazon Wish List for the pantry – these items go directly to the pantry and are a BIG help! https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/WIUTGN2U4O9I

Thank You

Thanks to the following people who volunteered this month in the food pantry: Alyssa Cowell, Kerry Doub, Heather Fray, Dominique Greve, Denise Oswald, Pooja Satija, Sara Seamann, Julie White, Sally Pickard and especially our amazing pantry leadership team: Erin Furey, Sheilah White and Tammy Menzel.

Thanks to the following people who made the Ballantyne Families’ Pantry Open House a success: Erin Furey, Sheilah White, Sally Pickard, Melissa Graham, and Robert, Mason, Tyler and Heather McAfee.

Thank you to the Morrison YMCA staff who organized a food drive for our pantry! Also, about 20 Morrison YMCA staff delivered the food to the pantry and met with Ballantyne Families volunteers to learn about our organization, how they can help and helped sort and date the food. Thank you to the following Ballantyne Families volunteers who made it happen: Sheilah White, Erin Furey, Julie White, Sally Pickard and Susan Hicks.

For School Counselor Appreciation Week (Feb 5-9), we celebrated and gave thanks to our 9 amazing counselors/social worker from each of the schools. We delivered flowers, a gift basket of goodies and a card to each of them. Many thanks to those who helped make it happen:

-Nothing Bundt Cakes (Marvin) for donating 9 beautifully wrapped bundlets for our incredible school counselors/social worker.
-Trader Joe’s (Piper Glen) for donating flowers, chocolate, and cookies.
-Generous donors who donated gift cards to Target and a local coffee store along with other treats.
-Julie White who helped to put everything together.
-Delivery drivers: Julie White, Lauren Rosenbaum, Susan Hicks and Brooke Hicks

Thank you to the LendingTree Foundation for including Lauren Rosenbaum and Heather McAfee at their Resiliency Workshop for Non Profit Leaders.

Thank you to the Ballantyne Rotary club for inviting Heather McAfee and Lauren Rosenbaum to their monthly lunch meeting to speak about Ballantyne Families.

Thanks to the many people who have purchased food items for the pantry through the Amazon Wish List. You have really helped to fill our pantry shelves!

Thank you Novant Health for inviting Ballantyne Families Helping Neighbors In Need to the Ballantyne Ball 2024.

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14023 Lissadell Circle
Charlotte, North Carolina 28277
USA