Carole opened the meeting at 7:12 pm by reading the Christmas prayer of Pope John XXIII. A copy of this prayer will be placed in each Christmas basket that we hand out. The minutes were read by Barbara Yannaco, accepted by Nick Dono, and seconded by Jack Kiely. In attendance were: Betty Riggio, Jack Kiely, Roseann Malagrino, Lou Malagrino, Nick Dono, Dianne Ryan  Ed Ryan, Yvonne Alexander, Laura and Bucky Ryan, Kay Coyle, Linda Hunt, Bill and Carole Grafer, Joanne and Chuck Bunnell, John Lucid, and Barbara Yannaco. Our HPNAP report  for November: we served 83 households which included 177 children, 141 adults, and 14 elderly. This is an 18% increase over November 2006. We also supplied 93 families with Thanksgiving baskets.   We have received donations from Hopewell Auto  Parts, Riverside Banjo Band, and  a parishioner  of St. Denis who wishes to remain anonymous. The final count from the St. Columba second collection has not yet been made but it appears that it will be close to $9000.00. All donations are back in the food closet. We thank Yvonne for her generosity in letting us use her home. Carole Schieble will be doing a food drive for us in April. Carole ended the meeting at 8:03 pm with a prayer .A short but delicious Christmas party followed.

Stop and Shop gave us frozen dinners to give to our clients who will use them. .They seem to be going very well. We will call Joann DiSalvo to see if St. Denis will  be doing the Souper Bowl benefit for us this year. Thanks to the information Kay brought us from Stewarts Carole bought 100 milk coupons for $139.50. Nick tells us that the half gallons seem to go better than the gallons and most of these coupons are gone already. Carole will look into purchasing some more. Nick and Chuck went to the food bank on Dec.12th. They returned with 1900 lbs. of food and spent $1112.84. Our regular helpers were on hand to put this away. Please keep in mind that we have 4 freezers and only 1 cooler. Msgr. Colacicco would prefer that we not use the rectory if we need to cancel a meeting due to the weather. We will call all members who attended the previous meeting. If you do not get a call or missed the previous meeting you can call Carole. Hopewell Hot Bagels is now donating their left over bagels to us on Monday. JoAnn DiSalvo is bringing these bagels to the closet. Father Michael sent us a beautiful Christmas card. Governor Spitzer may have made more grant money available that we qualify for. Carole will be looking into this. The next meeting will be held on Jan. 2008 . Submitted by Barbara Yannaco