Party and Raffle at the Circle Bar Raises More than $500!

The April 17 fundraising benefit at the Circle Bar raised $582 for the Mustard Seed Food Pantry at the Community Center of St Bernard. Guests had a great time, enjoying free food and live music by The Jazzholes, and entering a raffle to win a wide range of awesome prizes including tickets to the Audubon Zoo and Aquarium, restaurant gift certificates, Jazzfest tickets, and a variety of prize packages. The evening's Lucky Winners included:

  • Benjamin Myers
  • Chuck Harvey
  • Lia Daniels
  • Caroline Valencia
  • Pat Jolly
  • Mark Yurkiw
  • Brian Kearney
  • Danny (also the evening's top donor!!)
  • and Daniele

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE WINNERS! AND TO EVERYONE WHO ATTENDED, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

All proceeds for the event benefit the Community Center’s Mustard Seed Food Pantry, which feeds local low-income families in need. In just the past 3 months, the Community Center has supplied 58,628 pounds of canned and dried food to 1,996 local residents, including 519 children. And, according to Iray Nabatoff, the Center's Executive Director, the numbers are growing at an alarming rate as the economy continues to worsen. In the past month alone, 107 new families joined the Community Center’s Food Pantry.

To meet this rising demand, the Community Center is actively looking for ways to increase the amount of food that the Food Pantry has available. Local schools and business have hosted food drives that have been very helpful, especially around the holidays. And the Center’s new Food For Seniors program gives supplemental food boxes to senior citizens every month. But the Community Center’s Food Pantry shelves still run empty sometimes, and the staff have to cut back on what they give each family to make sure no one goes without.

“It’s hard listening to people ask us ‘Is this all you have?’ knowing that it just isn’t enough,” said Bethany Garfield, food pantry coordinator at the Community Center of St Bernard. “I’m really excited about this fundraiser as a way to both increase awareness about our food shortage and raise funds to buy more food for our pantry so we can give people the help they need. The alternative – turning hungry families away because we don’t have any food to give them – is something we don’t ever want to do.”

A Big THANK YOU to our Donors and Sponsors

We'd like to thank everyone whose generosity and support has helped the Circle Bar Fundraiser be such a success, including:

Thank you so much everyone! Your generosity and support are AMAZING and we couldn't have done it without you!