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Dear Members, Happy Thanksgiving! Here we are at Basket Time again. Linda Hunt has been busy with her committee making sure everything runs smoothly when we give out the Thanksgiving baskets on November 24 and the Christmas baskets on December 22. PLEASE make sure we have up-to-date information on your client family. In other news, on our latest shopping trip to the Food Bank, we purchased over 3300 pounds of staple items and meats. The closet still looks low but there are several food drives coming up. In this newsletter, I am writing about Protective Services for Adults (PSA) which is part of the Department of Social Services. Protective Services for Adults is a system of services aimed at keeping an individual independent in the community. The services they offer are: 1. Counseling 2. Locating medical care, general services and resources in the community 3. Providing follow-up and monitoring 4. Assisting in money management 5. Finding alternative living arrangements 6. Advocating on the client's behalf Basically this service will aid people over
18 who have mental or physical impairments which hinder them from obtaining
the needs of life-food, clothing, shelter, medical care or people who are neglected, abused or in a hazardous situation. These people
have no one else willing or able to assist them responsibly. Conditions which
may contribute are mental |
illness, mental retardation, chronic or acute physical illness, physical handicaps, Alzheimer disease, and alcohol or substance abuse. Though many of our clients only need a temporary helping hand, there are some who come to us because of the factors listed above.
The PSA staff meet with a potential client either in their office or in the client's home to assess the amount of risk or vulnerability involved. They will handle the immediate emergency and then will assess the situation. The assessment must be completed in 60 days. A potential client can be referred by any concerned person and the referral is kept strictly confidential. When I spoke to a caseworker in this office, the person offered to come to our meeting to explain more fully the PSA guidelines. One point she wanted to stress is that PSA staff will respect the client's right of self-determination and will work with the client to develop a mutually agreed upon plan of services to reduce the risks the client is facing. I also spoke with the Director of PSA the next day. I must admit I was impressed by the compassion and commitment to the less-fortunate adults in Dutchess County. This Agency may be just what some of our clients need to get them back on their feet. PSA's telephone number is 845/486-3300. Many thanks to Joan Freese and Nick Dono for their help on this topic. Our next meeting will be Wednesday, November 13 at 7 PM in the ST. Denis/St. Columba School library. Lastly, we extend our sincere sympathy to Pat Eskow on the passing of her husband, Dennis. Sincerely, Carole Grafer, President |
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October 9, 2002 Meeting St. Vincent de Paul Society: Minutes In attendance were: Joan Freese, Kay Coyle, Nancy Behanna, Joanne Bunnell, Chuck Bunnell, Carole Grafer, Bill Grafer, Nick Dono, Eva Pasqualini and Emily Berberich. The meeting came to order at 7:05 PM with a reading from Proverbs 14 The minutes were read and accepted. Our pantry served 63 households for the month of September: 112 children, 107 adults and 18 elderly. Danielle Merchant from the US Department of Agriculture will be donating a cookbook to us. Joan, one of SVDP members, will try to get some free copies of cookbooks for our clients from Social Services. We received our $31 rebate from our freezer purchase and our $1000 credit from Wakefern, which must be used by January 1, 2003. Carole handed out the schedule for our future meetings, an updated member directory and a rough draft of our SVDP guidelines. We filed for $900 for truck rental money and the next run to the Food Bank will be on October 17. As of now, our pantry is very low on supplies. I am happy to report that we have 5 upcoming food drives from the following groups: Nita Ballantyne's Brownie Troop, St. Columba's Girl Scout troop and all 3 churches' Religious Education Programs.
The attendance for the mass of Saint Vincent de Paul on September 27 had good turn out and Carole thanked everyone who baked something for the breakfast. Our next newsletter will be out at the end of the month. Nick suggested that each new client receive a brochure, guidelines and any other pertinent information on their first visit to the food pantry. Nancy, Carole and Linda need to get together to update our clients' information. I volunteered to solicit local food merchants to see if they would like to donate gift certificates for the upcoming food baskets and to keep on hand for emergency situations. Our meeting came to a close at 8:25 PM with a Hail Mary. Submitted by Emily Berberich. |
Bill and Carole picked up 10 boxes of salvage food from the A & P, however they threw out more than half due to poor quality. This is not the first time they have had to throw out spoiled food. We all agreed that Carole should talk to the manager about this problem.
St. Denis had a ministry fair on the weekend of Oct. 5 and 6. We were able to leave some of our brochures and a poster at a booth. BULLETIN BOARD
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