Community Action of Orleans and Genesee

New and gently used winter coats, hats, mittens, gloves, scarfs and boots in all sizes are being accepted by Community Action of Orleans & Genesee in Batavia.

These will be given to adults and children in need during this cold season.

Please donate only items that are clean, without holes or broken zippers.

Drop off donations at Community Action of Orleans & Genesee, located at 5073 Clinton Street Road, Batavia, anytime between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Call 343-7798 for information.

Today, in Austin Park, the 2nd Annual Children's Carnival, sponsored by Community Action of Genesee and Orleans Counties.

By the deadline of June 15, a statewide reading project hopes to collect at least 10,000 new or gently used storybooks for children in need.

"Smarty Pants" is a state Community Action Angels Project for Kids. "Read Me Ready" is the goal -- to make sure all children have a book of their very own. It takes so little from us, but means so much to them, say organizers.

Books or cash donations welcome!

Drop off books or cash at Community Action of Orleans & Genesee, located at 5073 Clinton Street Road, Batavia. (In Albion, the location is 409 E. State St.) Call Lisa at 343-7798 or Anni at 589-5605 for more information.

Wednesday at T.F. Brown's, Batavia, was the Genesee County Interagency Council sponsored a "Cabin Fever Reliever" Basket Raffle.  

"Our goal is to raise funds to support local college scholarships for students entering the fields of: sociology, psychology, social work or human services," said Heather Bell, a social worker with Catholic Charities.  

Applications have gone out to local high schools and are due back by June 1. Contact Lisa Whittmeyer, Scholarship Chair at Community Action 343-7798.  

More than 50 baskets were offered and there was a 50/50 drawing and grand prize -- overnight package with dinner for 2 at Russell's and Salvatore's in Buffalo.

The mission of the Genessee County Interagency Council is to create fellowship and understanding among community human services agencies. The council helps to identify community issues and encourages development of resolutions.

Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/geneseeorleansinteragency

Pictured above from left is: Heather Bell, social worker with Catholic Charities; Karen Hall, coordinator of Financial Management of Lifespan of Greather Rochester; Stephanie Urena, outreach specialist of United Health Care. Pam Case, PathStone family self-sufficiency manager, and Michele Lawson, support coordinator of Care-A-Van Ministries.

Press release:

Community Action of Orleans & Genesee will hold a free "Poverty Simulation" the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 3 at the Batavia First United Methodist Church, located at 8221 Lewiston Road (Route 63) in Batavia. It will take place from 1 to 3:30 p.m.

Space is limited. Please RSVP by Wednesday, Sept. 24, by contacting Nathan Varland, director of Housing and Support Services at 589-5605 or e-mail:   nvarland@caoginc.org

Citizens, decision makers and leaders are urged to attend.

(This is a separate event from the organization's Poverty Awareness Dinner at Batavia Downs, also on Oct. 3, in the evening.)

How would you face a month in poverty? Could you survive?

Well over 44 million Americans, 15 million of whom are children under the age of 18, live in poverty every day. In Genesee and Orleans counties alone, more than 12,700 people (including more than 4,000 children) live below the poverty line.

There are many more who have incomes above the poverty line, but their incomes are still low enough to qualify for programs like Food Stamps and Medicaid. Since the economic downturn, full-time employment is harder to find and the use of emergency food pantries has increased.

It is difficult for those of us who have enough to truly understand the situations that families living in poverty experience every day – the decisions they have to make, and the fears and frustrations they feel.

We are eager to enhance our community conversation about poverty as we begin our 50th year. We are inviting you to "walk a mile" in the shoes of those facing poverty by participating in a Community Action Poverty Simulation.

The Simulation provides participants with the opportunity to assume the role of a low-income family member living on a limited budget. The experience is divided into four 15-minute sessions, each representing one week in which you must provide for your family and maintain your home.

As one participant commented, "This poverty simulation dramatically demonstrates how much time and energy many families have to give just to survive from day to day. It quickly dispels the myth that people would do fine if they would only go out and get a job!"

Games, prizes and treats, along with information on safety and health, were all part of the Penny Carnival sponsored by Community Action of Orleans and Genesee today in Austin Park.

Mary Repast, Kim Floskowski and Lisa Wittmeyer were in Austin Park yesterday handing out fliers to promote a Penny Carnival hosted by Community Action of Orleans and Genesee Counties.

The Carnival will be in the park next Friday, Aug. 22, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Children are encouraged to bring pennies.

The event is co-sponsored by the Salvation Army, Care-A-Van and Jr. Angels in Action.

There will be games and prizes.

Every month, hundreds of people in Genesee County rely on free food programs to help them meet their nutritional needs, and the number of people needing assistance has only grown, according to local food bank officials.

Even as the need goes up, said Laura Sugarwala, nutrition resource manager for Foodlink, funding is in danger of being cut.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed budget cuts funding for the main source of revenue for these programs by 13 percent and puts the budget allocation into the Maternal Child Health and Nutrition Grant program.

The change would essentially end the 30-year-old Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP).

Agencies such as Foodlink would compete with other programs for a single pot of money. Also, the change would delay the ability of Foodlink and the organizations they serve to budget in advance of providing services, at least to the same degree they can now.

Foodlink helps channel HPNAP funding to four local agencies that feed the hungry -- Community Action of Orleans & Genesee, the Salvation Army, Steven's Table and City Church.

"I see a lot of hungry people, a lot of children this could potentially effect," said Lisa Whittmeyer, emergency service coordinator for Community Action.

Whittmeyer and Sugarwala hope that area residents will stop by the Community Action office at 5073 Clinton St. Road, Batavia, to sign a petition, sign the online petition at FoodlinkNY.org, or write to Assemblyman Steve Hawley and Sen. Michael Ranzenhofer and express support for retaining funding as is for HPNAP.

The proposed cuts would mean a cut in services and the amount of food available, both Whittmeyer and Sugarwala said.

Sugarwala said it will be much harder to provide properly nutritious food to clients of the local agencies if funding is cut.

"In my role as nutrition resource manager, I would have to make decisions, without funding, about what we wouldn't be able to carry in the way of nutritious products, items like low-grain and low-sodium products -- all the things that are important for health," Sugarwala said.

The people who rely on food bank programs are not necessarily the same people who get food stamps or receive other government assistance.

Those programs are means tested and sometimes people reach circumstances in their life where they simply don't have enough money for food, even though they don't qualify for other government assistance programs.

For any of the food banks, anybody who walks through the door and says they're hungry gets a meal.

"People in our service area come from a variety of backgrounds," Sugarwala said. "We don't know everything that's going on at home."

Foodlink, which receives $2 million in annual funding from HPNAP, serves a 10-county region in WNY. Four years ago, a survey found 125,000 people in that service area that don't always get enough to eat.

Since then, food banks have seen a 30-percent increase in the number of meals served. Foodlink is preparing another survey because officials suspect the number of people facing food emergencies regularly may have as much as doubled.

It all started with a little girl with a big heart.

Angelique Heick, the 8-year-old from Bergen who competed as a finalist in the "American Miss" pageant in August, spent a large part of the last year taking money from her monthly allowances and using it to purchase toys for underprivileged children in Genesee County.

She donated 12 toys for each month of the year to Community Action Angels of Genesee County, which is the volunteer arm of Community Action of Orleans & Genesee. It's made up of volunteers dedicated to gathering donations for toys, food, clothing, extra money and other necessities for Genesee County residents in need.

But this wasn't enough. When Angelique learned about all that the "Angels" do to support needy kids and families, she was bothered that there was no such volunteer program for kids her age.

"I wanted to know why there was no Community Action Junior Angels," she said, "so I decided to start my own."

Now, with the help of 100 Girl Scouts -- officially dubbed "Jr. Angels" -- their families, Community Action and others, Angelique has achieved this dream.

Angelique -- a third-grader at Byron-Bergen Elementary School, a Girl Scout since age 4 and a member of Troop 42174 -- inspired her Girl Scout Troop with her idea and efforts to collect funding promises from local businesses along with three friends -- Pat, Lisa and Annet.

Troop 42174 Leader Rene Vurraro gathered Girl Scout Troops from Byron-Bergen, Pavilion and Le Roy to help with a community service event in response to Angelique's vision.

When Community Action, in turn, heard about what the Scouts were doing, they decided to partner with them to make this a much bigger, annual event called "Circle of Giving" and to develop a Community Action Jr. Angels program.

The first "Circle of Giving" was held on Saturday at Byron-Bergen High School.  The Jr. Angels were there to collect donations of food, clothing and toys, and to make cards for the recipients.

The goal is to eventually turn this into an opportunity for area Girl Scouts to earn a badge.

Beyond that, Community Action has included this project in a book of statewide initiatives so that people in other areas of New York State can read about it and get similar projects started.

"One 8-year-old's dream could turn into thousands of Girl Scouts doing the same thing," said Pat Standish, founder of Community Action Angels of Genesee County.

Standish gave the Scouts an inspirational talk about her experience with the "Angels" and told them how much people will appreciate what they are doing.

"When I first started (with Community Action Angels)," she said, "I thought kids would want things like bicycles and iPods. But what's important to them is not what you give, but that you show that you care."

She also stressed the importance of team effort when it comes to the "Angels" and similar volunteer initiatives.

"I may have had the idea (as founder)," Standish said, "but I needed the help of volunteers to make it happen. And Angelique had an idea, but she couldn't have done it without help from all of you and your families."

Organizations that sponsored this endeavor include Stahlka Agency, Complete Payroll Processing, the Sallie Mae Fund and First Niagara Bank.

"They gave money so the kids wouldn't have to wait (to get started)," Standish said.

Dee Dee Hintz, Angelique's grandmother and legal guardian, expressed gratitude to Byron-Bergen Jr./Sr. High School Principal Aaron Johnson and Elementary School Principal Brian Meister for handing out fliers for this event.

"I think this is the beginning of something big," Hintz said, noting the number of volunteers involved in the overall project.

"Next year will be even bigger," she said. "(Angelique) already knows what she wants to do next year. She'll carry this on for at least two or three more years."

A final note

"Circle of Giving" is the philosophy of Community Action Angels, which encourages its beneficiaries to "pay it forward."

According to Standish, many of the people helped by the "Angels" over the years have become volunteers.

Special thanks to Angelique's mom, Jennifer Cejka, for sharing background information prior to the event and for providing the inspiration for the article's title.

Some members from local Brownie Girl Scout Troop 42001 went around to visit some local places today to give thanks before the upcoming holiday. First stop was at Community Action of Orleans and Genesee to present some donations of goods to help familes for Thanksgiving.

We presented to Lisa Wittmeyer, case manager (left), some donations from our troop shown above. Next to her are Noelia Ventura, Alyssa Ognibene, Portia Ranalli, Co-Leader Steve Ognibene and Brandi Lang-Smith.

Then our troop visited and donated Girl Scout Cookies to Justice for Children pictured below.

Accepting the cookies was Julie Walsh (pictured middle holding our letter).

Our last stop was M&T Bank to give our thanks to Bank Manager Mike Easton (left, below) and present him with a Certificate of Sponsorship for allowing us to use his bank for our cookie booth sales this year. 

Our troop did very well in cookie sales and together with individual sales we sold 1,000 boxes of cookies. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

(Photos submitted by Steve Ognibene)