Their Music is Great ... Their Generosity THE Sweetest!

We received another wonderful boost for the IHS Food Program with a late December grant from the Bama Works Fund of Dave Matthews Band in the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation (CACF).  A check for $10,000 arrived in the mail in late December. Interfaith Humanitarian Sanctum (IHS) is one of sixty-one (61) organizations receiving $400,700 in grant awards in this last cycle. Feeling so very thankful The Bama Works Fund of Dave Matthews Band in CACF has supported our requests consistently for three (3) straight years. This represents a total of $28,000! With this latest dedicated grant to supplement the food requests for UVA Hospitality House (HH) and for purchases of food for meal-making of full-day meal packets used inside the hospital by social staff for underfunded outpatients and their caregivers, there will be stability in IHS food budget for 2014. This grant has a tremendous impact on two distinctive food programs For the Full-day Meal Packets accessed by Social Workers in the Hospital ... The benchmark continues to be about 2,500 meal packets annually at UVA. That could jump up to 3,000 meal packets quickly. The balance of needing grant money for keeping the supply ready for twice monthly deliveries (200-250 packets monthly) depends on the number of community groups, such as scouts, church classes and congregations, schools, clubs and families, who are making meal packets. 2,500 packets doesn't sound like a large quantity, until you realize that each packet contains about six dollars in food for a full day of nutrition. Therefore, this minimum of 2,500 has an investment value of $15,000. In the year 2013 the community groups bought and made 1,311 packets. This represented $7,866. For the UVA Hospitality House (HH) this charity is the most reliable provider of food ... The Manager of HH e-mails a list of needed items twice monthly, about half of which are perishable. Therefore, actual funds are needed to shop and deliver within hours of a purchase. For the last three months of 2013, the average monthly purchase was $380. Some months the purchase can be about $550.  The expectation for 2014 is for no less than $6,000 for HH. Hopefully in 2014 more groups who wish to supplement HH needs for non-perishable items can call or e-mail and ask what is needed.  Remember - at any one time those 30 HH rooms can be filled with a large number of guests who simply cannot afford to visit nearby restaurants. To the Bama Works Fund of Dave Matthews Band Committee ... Thank you for allowing this core group of volunteers that cushion of funds to feed the least able visitors to our community.   Sincerely ... All of IHS,  the UVA Social Staff and UVA Hospitality House staff