It takes many hands to lighten the workload of our community outreach program.

We could not do this very important and necessary program without you. A gracious thank you is extended to both the Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative board and membership and to you - the residents and businesses - who also see the need and want to help the food insecure in our community.

Since March, you have provided much-needed food and monetary donations and many manpower hours helping us to implement our food procurement, packing operations and distribution of food every other Thursday in both Coplay and Whitehall.

WCHI projected an increase in future food needs at our July 25 board meeting and decided to extend our outreach program through Oct. 22. Unfortunately, our thoughts on the need have been correct.

On July 16, we served 146 households, 187 adults, 86 seniors and 176 children - for a total of 449 people.

On July 30, we served 146 households, 220 adults, 73 seniors and 214 children - for a total of 507 people.

On Aug. 13, we served 148 households, 245 adults, 68 seniors and 200 children - for a total of 513 people.

Below are the specific numbers for Aug. 13.

Whitehall

Households: 79

Adults: 140

Seniors: 30

Children: 129

Total of people: 299

Coplay

Households: 69

Adults: 105

Seniors: 38

Children: 71

Total of people: 214

Total

Households: 148

Adults: 245

Seniors: 68

Children: 200

Total of people: 513

Go to our new website, whitehallcoplayhungerinitiative.org, to see the food items we can use. The asterisked items on the top of the list are the needed items for the Aug. 27 distribution.

They include individual macaroni and cheese, individual cereal boxes/cups, individual oatmeal packs, juice boxes/pouches, peanut butter/cheese crackers, jelly, spaghetti/pasta (not egg noodles), vegetable or chicken noodle soup, canned vegetables (not corn), large cereal boxes, baked beans and Hamburger Helper.

Every Sunday, I email a weekly update to our Hunger Initiative database. If you would like to receive one, please email me at WhitehallCoplayHunger@gmail.com and I will gladly add you. Many recipients of my emails forward them to their own databases. Thank you for doing this. More people get to hear what WCHI is doing.

A few weeks ago, Mary Spieker, director of religious education at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Roman Catholic Church in Fullerton, forwarded my email. Shortly after, I received a phone call from Yancelly Gaviria, who, along with five of her friends, wanted to help us disburse food.

I asked her to go to our Sign Up Genius account - tinyurl.com/y9us2h9y - to pick an available date and time.

They chose to volunteer 10:30 a.m.-noon Aug. 13 in Coplay. I knew they were coming and thought they were high school students who needed service hours.

Little did I know, Gaviria and her friends are Delta Zeta sorority sisters at Shippensburg University. One of the girls lives in Easton and another in Nazareth. The other four drove 125 miles to help us.

In addition to disbursing food, they decided to raise money by making a virtual bingo board with money options instead of letters and numbers. They posted the board on social media and people donated to fill the bingo board. They raised $243 and purchased food products like peanut butter and cereal that they also gave out with our regular bagged items.

This was a special day. Thank you, Mary Spieker, for sending an email that, in return, brought so much happiness and smiles to these sorority sisters and to our Coplay guests.