Happy New Year!
I hope you all had an amazing holiday season and are ready to dive into 2024. Amy and I had a whirlwind holiday with friends, family, lots of good food and, of course, pugs. We are sad to see the season end but excited to take on the challenges ahead. Before I get into those challenges and the significance of this brand new year, I want to briefly touch on last year’s successes.
I don’t think any of us expected anywhere NEAR what the Many Hands Project accomplished in 2023! We didn’t even start our year until February since we were still following our every-other-month pattern from 2022. In February, with a couple of friends helping us, we made 190 homemade meals. We had no other volunteers, no partners and just one or two small donations. From there this thing took off like a rocket! At our December event a few weeks ago we had 13 volunteers, 5 financial donors and 2 food partners providing us with fresh veggies. As a result, we were able to deliver 1,400 cookies, 100 brown bag lunches and 9 boxes of fresh greens!
2023 Totals
2,530 meals
1,400 cookies
19 boxes of fresh greens
All of these meals were distributed to food insecure Atlantans through our partnership with Feeding Georgia Families. Here’s what their CFO Alicia Rivera said about our efforts last year:
“Thank YOU for helping us to serve families and especially our unhoused with made-from-the-heart meals. I can’t tell you the number of times they’ve said how good it feels that someone cares enough not only to cook but to prepare that QUALITY of meals.”
Honestly, I have never been so proud and so humbled to read those words. This is why we do what we do at the Many Hands Project. It’s our mission statement in action. We volunteer our time, energy and love, not just to feed the hungry, but to give a little joy and hope through our efforts. Each and every one of you who volunteered, donated, supported, or even liked and shared our social media posts should beam with pride over this quote. YOU are making a difference!
OK, enough about the past. If you know me, then you know I like to talk about the future…
2024 could be a watershed year in American and even human history. We all feel it. Politics, social media, the economy; everywhere we turn there is anger, frustration, and hopelessness. Every day we make a choice- to fight the avalanche of negativity surrounding us or to succumb to it. We can make the world just a little bit better through our actions or do nothing and watch things get just a little worse. It may seem like your efforts are wasted but if you read that highlighted quote above one more time, you will realize that that they are not! Your actions- your little kindnesses to strangers, saying please and thank you, and your thoughtfulness with friends, family and coworkers ALL have an impact. You matter and what you do matters. So do something good!
In 2024 the Many Hands Project is ready to explode. We see an ever-growing need. Even more people are hungry. More people are unhoused. Perhaps worst of all, more people feel alone and isolated. Yet at the same time we also sense a growing desire in all of us to meet these needs. To right these wrongs. To pull us all back from the edge. To fashion a better world for us all.
“Everybody wants to save the Earth. Nobody wants to help mom do the dishes.”
– P.J. O’Rourke
You will probably never have to choose between the red wire and the blue wire as the detonator clock ticks down. You’re probably not going to singlehandedly repel an alien horde or invent a magic box that reverses climate change. But here’s what you can do. You can keep a case of bottled water in your car and hand it out to folks when you’re stopped at a light. You can clear out your closet and donate old clothes and blankets to a shelter. You can foster an abandoned animal for a few days until they can find their forever home. There are so many things you can do. You just need to decide to do them.
Pick the area of your choice – whatever speaks to you. They are all worthy: homelessness, hunger, domestic abuse, climate change, education. That’s where your energy should go. For Amy, it’s dogs. For me, it’s hunger. I like to feed people. What can I say … I’m Italian! If you haven’t been to one of our events, I make a homemade meal for the volunteers so they have something delicious as they prep the meals. I promise you that you’ll leave with full stomachs and full hearts!
We can always use your help here at the Many Hands Project. We need groceries, packaging, meal prep, cooks, pickups and deliveries, social media help, grant writers, and a dozen other things. If you’ve got a skill and a willingness to use it, we will happily put you to work.
In 2024, we are committed to growing this organization and fighting food insecurity in America. I hope that each one of you- my friends, coworkers, neighbors, and family- will take the time this year to get involved in the Many Hands Project. Together we can make a difference. We will do it with smiles on our faces… and maybe a few crumbs on our shirts.
Vince Rotonda
Executive Director
Many Hands Project Inc.
At Many Hands we like to say “Work is love made visible”.