A letter from Katie
Winter 23/24
Newsletter
Happy Holidays,
We hope everyone is enjoying this time of year and everything it has to offer. Here at LCOC, we are feeling extremely grateful. I am humbled by the level of support from our community that enabled us to deliver more services than ever this holiday season. As we are looking forward to celebrating New Year’s Eve, we will also be celebrating the eve of our 40th Anniversary!
For the past 40 years, LCOC has had the privilege of serving our community. We have grown from one humble food pantry to an organization that is able to respond almost immediately to requests for many basic needs, including food, clothing, and financial assistance. We are proud to manage 9 emergency food pantries, Katy’s Korner, our free clothing and household resource center, our financial assistance program, which supports our residents with over $750,000 annually, and our holiday programs.
In recent years, LCOC has sought to make all of these services more accessible to our community. In addition to making services more available to our clients, we have also made healthy food options a priority in our pantries. Much of this work is made possible through support from within our community, including businesses and other non-profit organizations. Below you will read about many organizations that supported LCOC this year. We hope you will chose to support them in return!
As we prepare to close this year, we are reflecting on the fact that LCOC is successful because of all of you who selflessly support our work and our mission. So, as we ring in the New Year, know that the entire team at LCOC is eternally grateful for all of you.
Cheers,
Katie Wibby, CEO
Holiday Program Recap
Operation Warm
Operation Warm provided 420 new coats to children and adults in our community. Our clients were thrilled, and some shared that it was the first new coat they had ever owned. We are proud to be able to offer this service.
Thanksgiving Turkey Distribution
We had a record year! LCOC supported 616 families with Thanksgiving meals. We are grateful for our community partners who came together to support this important project. The Farm in Orleans hosted a Turkey Drive which collected over 300 turkeys, cash, and food donations. Fancy’s Produce hosted our volunteers over the course of three days as they packed all 616 boxes of fresh produce, and Friends Marketplace was able to provide all the nonperishables! Our volunteers were hard at work for over a week to ensure every family was served. We thank all of you for your support!
We also must thank Nauset Newcomers and St Vincent De Paul Society's Orleans Chapter for providing many grocery store gift cards to ensure our families had everything they needed for their Thanksgiving meals. This truly was a community effort.
Santa's Stop
For the first time ever, Santa Stop was hosted in two locations! We were at the Odd Fellows Hall in Orleans, as we are every year, but we also had the privilege of hosting this event at the Truro Community Center.
This was just one of the ways we are trying to make our services more accessible to all our clients. We also continued to distribute toys and gift cards at our office, and we ultimately served over 500 local kids this year!
Our community came together in a big way to support this annual event and to make it such a success. It is impossible to name them all, but a few organizations we must recognize are the Orleans, Eastham, Truro, and Chatham Fire Departments! Many of them spent countless cold hours outside at Homeless for the Holidays events.
The Departments collected hundreds of toys, a variety of food and thousands of dollars. Everything they collected went directly back into our local community serving families of the Lower and Outer Cape.
We also received significant support from the Village Toy Store, Cape Cod Five, the Brewster Police Department, Snows Home and Gardens through their Giving Tree, and the Brewster Book Store. All of these organizations either collected or donated toys for the families.
Additionally, The Orleans Yacht Club, the Seaview Community of Brewster, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, the Najarian Family, and the Salty Crown Boutique all donated a significant amount of gift cards and toys, as did dozens of individuals who stopped by the office.
Finally, we must recognize the dedicated volunteers who greeted every family with a smile, worked days, nights and even the weekend to ensure every family had access to this incredible program. This event is truly a community effort, and it epitomizes the holiday spirit. Happy Holidays to All!
Updates
Turkey Trot
We had another successful Turkey Trot! For our 19th Annual Race, we had a total of 2,477 registrations, up over 200 from last year, and we grossed over $100,000 yet again! This year we did have a few changes to the race, including moving the staging location to the Oyster Pond Parking Lot and some minor modifications to the race route. These small changes were made in conjunction with the Chatham Police Department to better accommodate our growing numbers and increase safety for our participants. After this year’s success, these changes are here to stay!
Thank you to everyone who registered, showed up to cheer and, of course, our volunteers. We are looking forward to celebrating the race’s 20th anniversary next year. We hope to see you there.
Playhouse Raffle
A final thank you to Cape Associates who generously donated their annual playhouse to LCOC. We had a ton of fun marketing and fundraising for this annual tradition. All of the money raised is used to support our programs and mission. We are happy to report that the playhouse went to a lovely local family who will fill it with imagination and laughter for years to come.
(508) 240-0694
lcoc@lcoutreach.org
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