February 2024 Newsletter

By Hearts for the Homeless | February 8, 2024

Sustaining Hope: Compassion For Feeding Those In Need

Each night when Code Blue is in effect, Hearts for the Homeless® provides 150 meals to two Code Blue shelters: the Genesee Street shelter and the Salvation Army shelter. On Thursday, January 11th, before the snowstorm hit our region, Hearts’ staff delivered meals to the shelters for that night and enough meals to also help get the shelters through the weekend.

By Sunday afternoon on January 14th, Hearts’ staff member, Stacey, received a call at home from the coordinator of the Code Blue Collaborative, stating that the day-time warming shelter did not have enough food for people who stayed the previous night. With everyone snowed in from the weekend storm and driving bans still in effect, the coordinator of the Code Blue Collaborative contacted the Chief of Buffalo’s Fire Department who then reached out to Stacey to provide a way to meet the emergency need.

The Buffalo Fire Department provided Stacey transportation from her house, to the Hearts Campus to pick up food. They traveled to the warming shelter to drop off meals for their guests and then traveled to Buffalo’s Emergency Command Center where they delivered meals to the people working around the clock to keep Western New Yorkers safe while coordinating the storm response. They too had been in need of food. The storm had calmed but it wasn’t over. By Tuesday, Hearts’ staff and volunteers were able to make their way back onto the campus and made even more meals once again.

A group of volunteers who had already made 250 sandwiches for Hearts’ Mobile Soup Kitchen made the decision to stay longer than they originally planned in the effort of making more meals for the second wave of the storm. Within six hours, Hearts’ staff and volunteers made 26 pans of food for the Code Blue shelters and those meals were delivered to the shelters that evening.

With 31 days in the month of January, Code Blue was in effect for 29 of them. Hearts for the Homeless® provided 4,350 meals directly to the shelters during the month of January thanks to our staff, volunteers and generous donors!

Donate towards our meal efforts and bring hope to those in need one meal at a time.

Hearts Harvest Food Pantry

The pantry is a living example of God’s love for His people and hundreds of individuals and families are visiting this program of Hearts for the Homeless® each month.

In January, Hearts Harvest Food Pantry Served 17,982 Meals

Households	Infants	Toddlers	Children	Adults	Seniors	Individuals
586	18	49	746	1,015	170	1,998

Hearts Harvest Food Pantry serves the 14207 community Tuesdays 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM and Fridays 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM.

Hearts Food Pantry Express

The Hearts Food Pantry Express is a mobile solution designed to address food insecurity in communities across Western New York.

In January, Hearts Mobile Food Pantry Expresses Served 2,277 Meals

Households	Infants	Toddlers	Children	Adults	Seniors	Individuals
101	5	11	59	119	59	253

Hearts Food Pantry Express at Christ United Methodist Church serves Mondays 12:30pm – 4:30pm. Hearts Food Pantry Express at Buffalo First Church of the Nazarene serves Thursdays 11:00am – 3:00pm.

Hearts Mobile Food Pantry

Hearts welcomed families and individuals to the first Mobile Food Pantry of 2024 . Clients really enjoyed our variety of milk, frozen meatballs with sauce, Bombas socks, fresh produce and so much more.

In January, Hearts Mobile Food Pantry Expresses Served 194 Meals