Keep Calm and Stay Home?!

Every once in a while we do something at Loaves & Fishes that just seems so perfect, I want to tell the world about it.  That’s how I feel about the theme for this year’s Third Annual Loaves & Fishes Non-Event.  What started out years ago as a “Cheese Ball” has evolved into an invitation to simply stay home!

In an office full of Downton Abbey fanatics, this year’s invitation theme features one of our very own board members posing as Lord Grantham inviting everyone to “Keep Calm and donate so Loaves & Fishes can carry on! ”.  The invitation can be found on our website, www.loavesandfishes.org. 

We have struggled for years with hosting a special event to benefit Loaves & Fishes.  It all began with a formal gala, The Cheese Ball, held in Founder’s Hall to raise awareness of hunger in our community. 

After a number of years we realized that as much fun as it was to attend, folks left knowing not much more about the actual mission of Loaves & Fishes than they came with.  So we “brought the party to our house.”  Our Feed the Need event, a low country boil and live auction, was held in our warehouse.  Finally folks could see exactly what they were supporting. 

But then calendars began to fill up for everyone, and doing a dinner for several hundred folks the same month as year-end inventory in the warehouse didn’t seem like such a good idea.  So we decided what we needed was a “non-event”- an invitation to support Loaves & Fishes and stay home on a Saturday night.  What a gift for everyone. 

Everyone wins – folks can support our work without having to get all dressed up, our warehouse can continue to function through this very busy time in the pantries, and our staff can devote all their time to making sure Loaves & Fishes does what it was designed to do – get groceries to neighbors in need.  Lord Grantham himself couldn’t have planned it better.