A Story of Thanksgiving to Share This Holiday Season

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By Karen Navarro

In November an appeal went out far and wide for help putting together 75-100 Thanksgiving Week food boxes for families who might not have enough food for not only Thanksgiving Day, but the entire week. While the children were out of school, they would not be getting school breakfasts and lunches. This is the story about how a whole lot of individuals, companies and organizations came together to make this happen.

The non-profit organization, Help Equals Hope, was in need of all food stuffs for these boxes, including the most expensive item, turkeys. Co-founders, Laura Burnett, Nancy Hays, Lisa Wilson and Bev Moore, reached out for some major volunteer help.

Two core volunteers, Debbie Trujillo and Debbie Vigil, immediately responded, as did others in the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Community Alliance. Fofo Voltaire offered her large event space, The Event Palace, free for the project, and many sponsors offered their assistance, including the Sandia chapter of Thrivent Financial, Guardian Storage (on Eagle Ranch Rd.), Chick fil-A (at Montgomery/San Mateo), and Smith’s Grocery Store (on Golf Course Rd.).

Other key contributors were the Route 66 Civitans, ABQ Health Partners, Pacific Dental Group, Juliette Applegate, Pegasus Legal Services for Children, Nathan Waites and W.I.N. (What’s Important Now), General Mills, Outcomes, Inc., Sweetheart Day Care (owner, Joan Davis), Donna Montano, Sol Acting Academy, GN Services, Inc., !explora!, Décor & More! Sports, and staff members from New Futures School.

Jeff Turocotte

35 Turkeys from St. Pius X
As Thanksgiving week approached, the organizers realized they needed 30+ turkeys. Jeff Turcotte at St. Pius X High School heard about this and the next day the boys’ and girls’ cross-country track teams he coaches rallied the money in three hours to purchase 35 turkeys, with help from members of the girls’ soccer team! When thanked, Jeff responded, "Glad our team could help your great team! Happy Thanksgiving!"

So in the end, what were the results of this community wide effort?

95 Thanksgiving food boxes with turkeys, stuffing, sweet potatoes, potatoes, canned vegetables, cranberry sauce, bread/rolls, chile, olives, rice, cereal, beans, gravy mix, desserts and drink mix.

At the direction of Help Equals Hope, a vast network of individuals, organizations and sponsors had all pitched in to feed 95 grateful families in need identified by social workers and other staff at schools, medical facilities and social service agencies, including:

• grandparents raising grandchildren (some with GAPP—Grandparents as Parents Program), 
• the families of clients at UNMH health clinics, 
• UNMH Psychiatric Center, 
• YDI (including Casa Hermosa and Centro de Amor), 
• UNM Forensics Case Management, 
• MCH Family Outreach, 
• Petroglyph Elementary, 
• Headstart,
• ten families in To’hajiilee.

Testimonials of gratitude poured in:

“The clients we delivered food boxes to were crying and so appreciative!”

Debbie Trujillo, Debbie Vigil, Laura Burnett, Nancy Hays

Food boxes “went to individuals and families who have next to nothing. Some of those people have had their food stamp money cut in recent months from $150 to $20.”

“One grandparent family has four grandchildren and was thrilled. She said she didn’t know how she was going to do Thanksgiving and then I called. Perfect timing!”

Another Help Equals Hope project
Help Equals Hope collects school supplies and backpacks year-round for children in New Mexico whose parents can’t afford to purchase them. Their major school supply drive is in August, but they gather monetary and in-kind donations year-round. Children are referred by school principals, teachers, counselors, social workers, police and sheriff department officers, court personnel, including probation and parole officers, and other professionals working with children throughout New Mexico. If you can help, please email Laura Burnett (laura@helpequalshope.org) or call her at (505) 715-0091. (Check out the Help Equals Hope Facebook Page)

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Where Can You Help Out This Thanksgiving in Albuquerque

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By Karen Navarro
Every year at this time, Albuquerqueans call up social service agencies asking where they can serve Thanksgiving dinner, a way to give back to those who are less fortunate materially than they are. They may want to involve the whole family.

The truth is, the places that serve Thanksgiving dinner do not have to look for volunteers to serve the meal -- they already have more people offering to serve than they have places on the buffet line.

However, each year La Mesa Presbyterian Church, 7401 Copper Ave. NE (map), which serves a HUGE Thanksgiving meal, is looking for people to help with set-up, clean-up, and delivery of meals to people who are homebound. You can call the church office, 255-8095, and ask: “What can I do to help you out on Thanksgiving Day?”

Also each year, there is a huge project you can get involved with that provides food boxes to approximately 100 families during Thanksgiving week, when many students have inadequate nutrition while school is closed for the holiday. The project is directed by Help Equals Hope, a program of the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization called Americas Children. Visit their website to learn more about this organization. They work with teachers, principals, shelters and social workers to identify those they know who are in need of a Thanksgiving Week food box.

How can you help? By donating Smith’s or other grocery store gift cards for the purchase of turkeys and other food items – OR – by donating non-perishable food items and taking them to one of the five designated drop-off locations:

• !Explora! at 1701 Mountain Rd. NW (map); 
• GN Services, Inc. at 1425 Carlisle NE (map); 
• Sports…Décor & More! at 1001 Yale Blvd. SE, Unit K (map) ; 
• Sol Acting Academy at 5500 San Mateo NE, #114 (map); 
• Outcomes, Inc. at 1503 University Blvd. NE (map). 

The deadline for drop-offs is Saturday, Nov. 21.

Food items requested: turkeys, stuffing, sweet potatoes, potatoes, canned vegetables, cranberry sauce, bread/rolls, chile, olives, rice, cereal, beans, gravy mix, desserts, drink mix, etc.

The easiest way to help organizers get enough turkeys is to buy a gift card at Smiths, Walmart, John Brooks or Albertsons, and drop it off at one of the five drop-off sites or mail it to:

Help Equals Hope
P.O. Box 66765
Albuquerque, NM 87193

Include a note saying “this is for the Thanksgiving food drive.”

Each year Help Equals Hope also holds a school supply drive in August, providing backpacks of school supplies for children whose parents cant afford to purchase them, and they gather monetary and in-kind donations year-round.

(The author worked at St. Martins Hospitality Center for 21 years, including her role as client advocate for much of that time. She continues to network with colleagues in homeless services).

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Interfaith Candlelight Prayer Vigils This Week Around Pope Francis Visit to the U S

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"Let us pray together for wisdom and conversion of hearts and actions to justice and hope on the eve of the first ever Papal Address to the U.S. Congress. 

People will be praying all over the United States.:

We are so pleased to be praying together throughout New Mexico in these communities. Please download the flyer for your area for details:

Wed., Sept. 23, 6:30-7:30 pm, Old Town Plaza, Albuquerque--Flyer

Sept. 23, 8-9 pm,Taos Plaza--Flyer

Sept. 23, 6:30-7:30 pm, McKinley Courthouse Plaza, Gallup--Flyer

Sept. 23, 7:30 pm, Gough Park Picnic Shelter, Silver City--Flyer

Sept. 23, 7-8 pm, Eddy County Court House, Carlsbad--

Thursday, Sept. 24, noon, Steps of St. Francis Cathedral, Santa Fe, info. mleagle@sjc.edu

A time to pray together for wisdom for ourselves and all leaders as we commit to action in light of the critical challenge of climate justice. September 23 is Yom Kippur for our Jewish brothers and sisters and Eid al-Adha (end of Hajj) with the Islamic community. We respect that they will be praying within their own traditions. As we pray for conversion and hope, we will be mindful of all of our interfaith brothers and sisters around the world affected by climate change, economic injustice and environmental degradation.   Each site will have a call for actions as well. 

Co-sponsored by New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, New Mexico Conference of Churches, Catholic Charities, New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, Interfaith Worker Justice of New Mexico, New Mexico Interfaith Dialogue and the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

National coordination by Interfaith Power and Light, Franciscan Action Network and Global Catholic Climate Movement.

If you have not organized a vigil with accompanying call to action around the Popes visit and would like information, contact joan@nm-ipl.org.  It is not too late to have a small gathering in your  home or faith community.

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Bread for the World Member Rick Steves Invites You to Join Him in Helping to End Hunger This Christmas

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"...Im one of thousands of Christian Americans who really see Bread for the World not as a charity but as a service. Together, we want to fight hunger, and Bread for the World represents that, and does our work right here in Washington, D.C."  excerpt from Rick Steves address at the Bread for the World national gathering, June 2014

Rick Steves loves Bread for the World. Every Christmas season, he puts together a special appeal to raise funds for our organization. The beloved television travel host and author has an offer for you again this year.

"Heres my challenge to you," Steves says on his Travel Blog. "Make a gift of $100 or more and as a thank you, Ill match your gifts (up to $250,000) and send you my European Christmas gift package or my Complete Collection 2000-2016 DVD Box Set (all 100 of my travel shows)."

This video tells you more about the European Christmas Gift Package


If you make your gift by December 10 (thats next Thursday!),  you’ll get everything in time for Christmas. "I’ll happily pay for the cost of these gifts and postage so that Bread can use 100 percent of your donation for their work," said Steves.

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Reminder Circo for the Community Fundraiser this Saturday March 5

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Below is the video about the Albuquerque Aerialist Collective, which will be performing at the event (and which is one of the five organizations that benefit from the fundraiser). Tickets are $35 and can be purchased on the NMCC site or at the door (you can write a check for any of these organizations). The cost of the ticket includes dinner and a reception.

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Homestead Happiness and Progress HAP This Week

11:56 PM in and, Aqua, hap, happiness, homestead, progress, this, week

Weve noticed in past years that we start to develop some symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), of a sort.  The weird thing is, it seems to be out of phase with the time of year that its supposed to crop up, that being the winter doldrums when sunshine is in short supply.  For us, and we wonder if also for many other part-time homesteaders, the winter isnt so bad because theres not a ton of stuff to do homesteading-wise (except dream and plan), so our off-farm responsibilities dont really get in the way of anything.

But then,  the air starts to get warmer, the ground starts to dry out, and the days start to get longer, but are still short enough that daylight hours are in precious short supply.  Thats when it hits us--when we want to get out in the yard and do stuff, but its already dark (or nearly so) when we get home from work.  So, to combat the worst effects of our out-of-phase SAD, were starting a new (hopefully weekly) series featuring simple things that made our day around the homestead. Itll remind us that even if we cant spend as much time on homesteady stuff as wed like, theres still plenty to be happy about and progress is still being made.  That is, were going to combat SAD with HAP.

This is a schematic representation of our out-of-phase SAD.  For full-time homesteaders, we imagine a flat line right at the top.  Another way to interpret the graph is to imagine the red line as homestead responsibilities and the blue line as how caught up with them we are.

Happy thing #1: The bees are still alive!  Even after adding a big ol candy board, we hadnt seen the cluster for a few weeks and couldnt hear much buzzing in the hive.  But on warm days, theres plenty of activity and usually a few dead bees pushed out the bottom entrance (which is good because it means there are still housekeeping activities going on inside).

The Meyer lemon tree finally has flowers again!  It had struggled through several years, and not even put out flowers the last couple, so hopefully well actually get some lemons this year!  Maybe we should put it out by the bees and hope they pollinate it!

Rapidly growing avocado tree.  Its now taller than an avocado!  If we can keep it alive, we might even start to see fruit in a mere 5-13+ years.

The Swiss chard is still alive and starting to pick up again.  We didnt have much insulation on it, just a closed in row cover, and hit -10 °F multiple times.  But the chard is a real trooper!

A new bag-drying configuration.  We finally figured out what to do with that kitchen window opening, those two eyelet hooks, and that piece of string we didnt want to throw out!  [Katie rolls her eyes.]  They dry way faster here than standing inverted on the counter or in the dishwasher Murphy-style drying rack.

Right now they drip dry into a couple plant pots...water conservation at its finest!  In the future well put in a planter there that looks like it actually fits there.  With the bags hung symmetrically, and the light coming through the window just right, this setup looks almost...decorative. [Katie rolls her eyes again.]

What made you happy on your homestead this week?

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A One Year Meal Plan Or What Should We Grow This Year

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This time of year is prime time for garden planning around these parts.  As we were thinking about what we might want to grow this year, we came around to the question of, "Well, what did we eat last year?"  We have a partial record of what we made right here on the blog, so that was a good place to start.  From there, we just had to fill in the things we normally eat for breakfast, lunch, and supper that we dont blog about. There is always a lot of variability depending on whats available (or on sale), the time of the year, how much time were at home, how much snacking on high-sugar dried fruits we do while waiting for the other to come home so we can explosively greet them when they walk in the door (like Hobbes greets Calvin), etc., but as a ballpark figure, could we make an estimate for food intake, assuming three servings per person per day?

The answer is yes!  And the estimate is fascinating. [...says Jake as Katie snores...]  If youve been following this blog for any amount of time, you probably know that a spreadsheet is about to appear.  And so we begin, with three sets of columns: one each for supper, breakfast, and lunch.

Into each set of columns, we enter recipes (copied and pasted from memory or the internet), specify the number of times per year were going to prepare them, and make sure units and ingredient names are consistent (e.g., that we dont say tomato in one recipe and tomatoes in another).

Then we use a pivot table (one each for supper, breakfast, and lunch) to count everything up.  Its a bummer we dont know how to make a pivot table from more than one range at a time (theres probably a way), but thats ok.  The workaround isnt too hard. From each individual pivot table, we create a master pivot table.  From the master pivot table, we can estimate how much of everything we need to acquire during the course of the year.  For example, we learn that we need about 54 dozen eggs, 49 gallons of milk, and 110 loaves of bread (assuming 12 slices per loaf).  If youve been in our kitchen, you know that works out to a surprisingly accurate figure of roughly one dozen eggs, one gallon of milk, and two loaves of bread per week.  And also 23 pounds of mushrooms, which sounds delicious.  Model validated!

More importantly (and to the point), we can estimate how many pounds of vegetables well have to grow and how many pounds of meat well have to catch to be self-sufficient.

Clearly, if we want to keep taking carrots to work for lunch, well need to grow a ton. (Or, a one-fourteenth of a ton, rather).  Similarly, we can see that we ought to devote a lot of our remaining garden space to tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, and greens.  Of course, were going to grow a larger variety of veggies than that, but the quantities we tend to eat (and would need to find storage space for) are instructive.  And honestly, well probably try to grow more winter squash, green beans, and peppers than the chart suggests.

On a similar note, if we want to keep on our current diet, well need to grow another batch of chickens and catch one large deer and a quarter of a pig. (Or raise one deer and catch a flock of wild chickens.  But we dont have space to raise both!)

All things considered, its a pretty balanced diet, not too far from Harvards Healthy Eating Plate.  Were a little heavier on the veggies, but hey!  Maybe well end up being a very localized blue zone.

Its important to keep in mind that these numbers are just guidelines; were not locking ourselves into a whole year of rigidly following recipes.  We substitute veggies and meats in and out of a recipe like a Wall Street bankster swaps stocks (although we hope none of our meals would be considered subprime or toxic assets).  But its nice to have a set of go-to dishes we can pick from and toss together from stuff in the fridge or pantry if weve already spent our creative energy for the day and still need to make supper.  Whatchagotamology at its finest!

We wont vouch for the user friendliness of the spreadsheet, but if you want to play around with it, you can download it here.  Suggestions welcome!


Do you make meal plans?  Whats your planning strategy?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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Early Letters to Congress on Global Nutrition are Helpful This Year

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Bread for the Worlds 2016 Offering of Letters urges Congress to increase funding for the nutrition and health of mothers, newborns, and young children in developing countries.  Here is the full guide for this years letter-writing campaign.

Hellen Mbithi

We have scheduled a workshop in Albuquerque on Saturday, March 12, to examine how local churches can become involved in this campaign. Our featured speaker is Hellen M. Mbithi, a nurse who was born and raised in the small village of Ngai in Kenya. She will tell us more  about how a lack of nutrition for mothers and infants can impact the development of children.

SPECIAL NOTE: Early Letters are Helpful: A major goal of this year’s Offering of Letters is increased funding for programs for the health and nutrition of mothers and children. This spring, Congress will be considering the funding levels of key global health and nutrition programs. As Congress begins determining next year’s funding priorities, it is important for your members of Congress to hear from you with letters early in the year.  Below is an early sample letter.

WRITE TO CONGRESS
Ask Congress to Support Global Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health and Nutrition
[Date]
Dear Senator__________ , or Dear Rep.___________ ,
Our country has led the way in improving the nutrition and health of mothers and children so they can achieve their full potential. We have seen tremendous progress, but our work remains unfinished. My faith calls me to urge that we continue until every mother and child has the chance to survive and thrive. Every life is precious.

As Congress considers funding for next year, I ask you to support at least $230 million for international maternal and child nutrition programs in the Department of State foreign operations appropriations bill’s global health account.

Sincerely,
[your name]
[your address]
[city, state, ZIP]

Here is a useful graphic from Bread for the World on a five step process how U.S. foreign assistance reaches people in need.  It all begins with our letters.

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