Ongoing high costs for housing, transportation, and food led more struggling families to seek assistance from Helping Harvest in 2024. The program recorded 3,406 shopping visits—a four year high—as families tried to maximize their food budgets and secure enough to eat for their households. The Hope Full Life Center team remained steadfast in our dedication to providing support. We assisted hundreds of individuals last year through our services.
What is Hope Full Life Center?
Hope Full Life Center (HFLC) is a hands-on ministry of Abounding Love Christian Fellowship.
The organization assists the needy in Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk and throughout southern Albany County and the surrounding region through Helping Harvest, a community food assistance program that encourages self-sufficiency.
HFLC is a 501(C)3 not-for-profit corporation founded in 2012.
HFLC oversees Helping Harvest and the Linda Civill Community Garden.
Mission Statement: Hope Full Life Center empowers people. Activated by compassion, our multifaceted outreach provides a helping hand, not a hand-out, to improve life for our neighbors.
2024 Program Highlights
Helping Harvest
Helping Harvest is a community food assistance program that bridges the gap between food pantries and for-profit grocery stores. Families can stretch their food budgets at Helping Harvest to ensure they have enough food and nutrition for their households. The program functions like a grocery store. Our clients, who we call 'members,' make their own selections and pay for their groceries, but at prices lower than elsewhere. Families save anywhere up to 50% on groceries from Helping Harvest.
2024 Statistics
Helping Harvest sent home $175,000 worth of groceries with low-income families in the area. Since its inception, the charity has sent home $1.8 million worth of groceries with struggling families.
Helping Harvest has 363 current members. We have served 1962 members since we opened in 2010.
118 new families enrolled in Helping Harvest in 2024.
Total member shopping visits to Helping Harvest in 2024 was 3,406, a four-year high.
When we add members and all the people in their households, Helping Harvest assists nearly 1,000 people in the area with food and nutrition annually. Since inception we have served nearly 8,000 individuals and families.
249 Helping Harvest members are from Albany County, but we also have people travel from Greene, Columbia, Rensselaer and Schenectady Counties to use the program.
243 children under age 18 were served by Helping Harvest in 2024.
Community Minded
When we have an over-abundance of food we share it with the Ravena Senior Projects, Capital City Rescue Mission and fellow food insecurity charity, Bargain Grocery Troy.
We continue to purchase produce from Black Horse Farms, a family farm located in Coxsackie. Black Horse Farms also donates some fruits and vegetables to Helping Harvest.
Linda Civill Community Garden
Hope Full Life Center did not open the garden in 2024 due to lack of a water source. We’re seeking an alternative location for the future.
Other 2024 Accomplishments
Stretching food dollars further with SNAP
21.5% of sales at Helping Harvest were made using SNAP benefits in 2024. Members utilize our low prices AND their SNAP benefits to stretch their food budgets even further. We also continue to serve many people who don’t qualify for SNAP, but are struggling, and those who refuse to enroll in public assistance.
Continued Access
Helping Harvest is open six days a week for a total of 24 hours, far longer than any food pantry in the area.
Thanksgiving Meals
We distributed 80 Thanksgiving meals to families in need thanks to support from the Ravena News Herald's Feed Your Mind, Feed a Family event, the Regional Food Bank and Allphase Masonry & Chimney and B.W. Property Care.
Blessing Boxes
During the holiday season we gave away 75 Blessing Boxes to families in need. The boxes were full of household paper products and cleaning supplies, which are not covered by SNAP benefits. We also included some festive holiday food items.
Generous individual donors and local businesses, TCI of NY, LLC, Allphase Masonry & Chimney, B.W. Property Care and New Scotland Paving & Excavating, made the Blessing Box project possible.
We identified plenty of need with Helping Harvest members where all boxes were distributed. 2024 marked the seventh year Hope Full Life Center ran the Blessing Bag program during the holidays.
Volunteers
A core group of 15 volunteers and staff kept Helping Harvest running in 2024. In total, volunteers spent at least 1,500 hours of their time assisting Helping Harvest’s operations last year.
Grants and Donations
HFLC generates the bulk of its operating income from individual donations. However, the charity was grateful to receive grants from these foundations: Alexander & Marjorie Hover Foundation, Seymour Fox Memorial Foundation, Bank of Greene County Foundation and Stewart’s Holiday Match.
Many businesses also supported our efforts in 2024 including Community Care Physicians, Port of Coeymans, P&M Brick, Simone's Kitchen, AllPhase Masonry & Chimney Services, New Scotland Paving, National Bank of Coxsackie, Felicity Donuts and Shear Creations. Trader Joe’s, Market 32, TCI of NY LLC and Essendant donated groceries and cleaning supplies to us throughout the year. Thanks to our landlord, Flach Development & Realty, we pay extremely low rent. We are grateful to each of these organizations who believe in our work and who help us walk out our mission.
Impact
Hope Full Life Center is proud of the services we provide and how we deliver them. We don’t just give struggling families in the RCS community access to low-cost food, we supply a benefit far less tangible - dignity.
The Center’s staff and volunteers strive to offer a clean, friendly, professionally operated program where customers can make selections to suit their individual tastes and needs. Through their purchases, customers contribute to their well-being and ensure the survival of the programs for others.
We are inspired by our fellow volunteers and the people we serve. We lean on Matthew 25:35-40 for direction: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Respectfully submitted,
Rebecca Flach
Executive Director
Yorumlar