Give to the Max: Open Arms of Minnesota

[pegkerr]

Today's Give to the Max, and I wanted to raise awareness about a wonderful organization that was there when my family needed them the most: Open Arms of Minnesota.

This is a non-profit that fed my family every week for four and a half years, during the time that Rob was fighting cancer. It was begun in 1986 by a man by the name of Bill Rowe, who saw the need to feed people with HIV/AIDS, which is why I have donated part of the most recent royalties from my book The Wild Swans. They then broadened their scope to assist families living with other life-threatening illness, such as cancer (which is why we were eligible). They provide a truly delicious frozen dinner up to five times a week, per person, per household, made by volunteers in their pristine commercial kitchen, and a pantry bag, including baked treats. They consider it their mission to help with healing by providing healthy, nutritious, and delicious food.

Their big annual event is Thanksgiving dinner: they will either cook it for you, providing a hot meal Thanksgiving morning, or provide the fixings to cook it yourself. The works: turkey, potatoes, vegetables, gravy, cranberry sauce, pie. They provide Thanksgiving dinner to over 800 families.

My sister Betsy is the one who found the organization when we were looking for resources to help us, and she has subsequently volunteered in the Open Arms kitchen. I joined her last week to help the crews packing up Thanksgiving dinner.

Here's the Give to the Max link (they're getting a match if you donate today).

I'll have some pictures when I post my next digital collage.

Comments

[dreamshark]

Thanks, Peg. They look like a wonderful organization. I have already given to my personal max this year, but I've added them to my list of charities to consider for 2022. I particularly like to donate to local organizations that work at the grassroots level with lots of volunteer help, and this sounds like exactly that.