April may not have brought rain to San Felipe but it did bring showers of good will for the people of San Felipe. Interact teens from Sonora California joined the Interact youth of San Felipe for two days of community outreach. On the first day, April 2nd, the teens broke up into four groups, shopped for fresh fruits and vegetables and went out with volunteers from the Better Together in Christ group and VSL and delivered a bountiful bag of produce personally to the homes of the elderly and children with disabilities. The next day, the teens and their chaperons returned to VSL to spend the morning painting the outside of the thrift store. It was was a Huck Finn kind of day and many willing hands made short work of an otherwise tedious job and resulting in a fresh new look for the food bank and thrift store.

As people get ready to leave, many have asked how they could best help the work of Volunteers Without Limits while they are gone. The easiest and most helpful thing you can do is to sign up for a regular monthly donation on our web site. Food distribution continues on through the summer months and water delivery becomes even more critical during these months of soaring temps. By the same token, sales in the thrift shop goes way down as our winter population dwindles. A regular monthly contribution of $10, $20 or more would help assure that our food bins don’t run empty between now and September.
Another tradition for many as they prepare to head north is to clean out the pantry and drop off any items that will not store well through the summer months. We will add these food items to our regular food distributions to the people of San Felipe. We have drop stations at San Felipe Storage behind the Roadrunner Cafe and Carole’s One of a Kind Fashion or Linda’s People’s Gallery in town.
Another way you can help is by setting up a recycle box in your home town to collect empty printer cartridges for the VSL recycling program. You can either wait and bring the cartridges with you when you return in the fall or send me an email (vsl.vwl@gmail.com) with your address and I’ll send you addressed and prepaid shipping labels for you to send the cartridges directly to the recycling center. These cartridges will bring $.50/ea (some more) to VSL for the purchase of food or the children’s special needs. You might even want to start you own recycling project with your club or group. There is some work involved as the cartridges have to be sorted and packaged according to the recyclers specifications. It is much easier to just bag them and drop them off at SunRunner or Yet Mail and leave the processing to the gals at VSL for a double blessing: first you will not be filling the landfills with waste and contaminants and second you will be supporting VSL’s food bank and aide to children with disabilities. Let me know if you need graphics or print material for displays.
Now to all our traveling friends, we pray for your journey to be safe and your return speedy. Looking forward to seeing you all next Fall.