WUMCO Enjoys Strong
Community Support
A few vital statistics about WUMCO in 2012. It had 603 service-transactions with individuals or families—emergency food, transportation of people to health facilities and financial assistance, such as for utility bills and prescription drugs. It was responsible for providing Thanksgiving food baskets to 132 families, Christmas food baskets to 149 families and Christmas toys to 256 children. Clients received almost 12,000 pounds of food. WUMCO volunteers logged over 3,600 miles on their cars transporting people to clinics and doctor’s offices.
It would be reasonable to assume that such a broad scope of activities would require a multi-person staff and a huge budget. Yet, the facts are that WUMCO operates with a staff of two—Executive Director Jane Stearns and a paid staff of only one (25 hours a week)--and a budget of less than $100,000.
How can this be so? Simply put, WUMCO is the recipient of incredible support from the community. A few examples: The vast majority of the food it distributes comes from food drives conducted by churches, schools, Scout troops, etc. and some is even collected at social gatherings where the “ticket” is one or more containers of non-perishable food for WUMCO. Local organizations gladly assume the responsibility and the cost for assembling and distributing many of the holiday baskets. Volunteers use their own cars with no charge to WUMCO to take clients to their medical appointments.
The pictures below are just a sampling of the multitude of ways in which the generosity of the wonderful people of the Western Up County is demonstrated.
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Helping Hands Poolesville, Inc., a relatively new organization whose mission is “Christian community service” provides a vital volunteer activity to WUMCO—their annual “WUMCO Work Day”, the purpose of which is to provide necessary repairs and maintenance to the headquarters building. Among the many tasks undertaken at the 2012 Work Day was staining the faded and deteriorating exterior to the food pantry.
WUMCO’s Jane Stearns (first from left to right) was glad to thank these volunteers who collected food in front of a local business establishment.
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Boy Scout Troop 694 conducts annual food drives every year for WUMCO. Their house-to-house collection in Poolesville garners up to 5,000 pounds of non-perishable food for the food pantry. Here scouts are shown taking inventory of the food they collected in 2012.
Part of the proceeds of the United Methodist Youth Fellowship’s annual sale of Super Bowl subs goes directly to WUMCO. Shown here are adult leaders and members of the UMYF as they prepared subs for their February 2013 event.
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Area Girl Scouts have on occasion adopted collecting food for WUMCO as a community project. These young ladies obviously enjoyed their work!
Poolesville resident Melissa Bingham decided that she would participate in the annual “Day to Serve” (a region-wide day of community service) in the fall of 2012. The project she selected was a special community-wide effort to collect food for WUMCO. With the help of many others who solicited donations of food from friends and neighbors, the effort yielded over 2,500 pounds of food. One of the venues used to get the word out was a float in the Poolesville Day parade in mid-September.
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The drama group at John Poole Middle School is also enthusiastic supporters of WUMCO. These thespians undertake a food drive in connection with their spring show, perform at the WUMCO Walk/Fall Fest and undertake a toy drive for the holidays. Their goal, as director Dee Turner puts it, is to “let the community know how important WUMCO is in our home town and by giving our time to help it can make a difference.”
To accommodate the many children who are on the recipient list for toys, WUMCO purchases many of the toys. However, many of the toys are donated by churches and other groups in the community. Even more significant are the toys donated by generous residents. Shown here are toys generated by local residents and stacked under the Poolesville Town Hall Christmas tree in 2012.
Even the “public sector” supports WUMCO. For the past two years a small group of volunteers from local churches, and the co-sponsorship of the Town of Poolesville’s Committee on Economic and Community Development (CEDC), have overseen a wonderful autumn event on Whalen Commons in Poolesville called “Fall Fest.” A variety of fun activities, including the traditional “Walk for WUMCO”, vendors and contests and games keyed to Halloween, raised over $5,000 in 2012. Shown here is part of the crowd watching participants parading their costumed dogs across the band shell stage.
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