Carole opened the meeting at 7:11 pm by reading the prayer that will be placed in all of the Easter baskets that we give out. The minutes were read by Barbara Yannaco, accepted by Joanne DiSalvo, and  seconded by Linda Hunt. In attendance were: Betty Riggio, John Lucid, Nancy Guarino, Ray Reilly, Bill and Carole Grafer, Nick Dono, Anne Nardelli, Laura and Bucky Ryan, Yvonne Alexander, Maureen Hough, Rusty Whitehead, Linda Hunt, Kay Coyle, Joanne Bunnell, Joanne DiSalvo, and Barbara Yannaco. Our HPNAP report for Jan: we served 70 households which included 142 children, 122 adults, and 16 elderly. For the month of February we served 64 households which included 113 children, 111 adults, and 16 elderly. This represents an increase of 33% over February 2007. For the year 2007 we received free food from the USDA that had a value of $785.21. In January Carole attended a meeting with Father Jose of St. Mary‘s in Poughkeepsie. Father was interested in setting up a food pantry and Carole offered him her assistance with this project. We are happy to say that the  St. Anthony’s food pantry is now up and running at on Main Street in Poughkeepsie. Gloria Goveneur and Kathy Nuding of the East Fishkill Library have announced that they will be having another food for fines drive. We will once again be a recipient of some of this food. We are once again a participant in Stop and Shop’s “Food for Friends” program. Carole picked up a check for $1467.00 from this very generous program.

St. Denis “Souper Bowl” event raised about $3200 for us. The religious ed program also did a wonderful job collecting food for the pantry. Blessed Kateri religious ed program did a very good job collecting food items for our pantry during the last two weeks of February. The date for the second collection for St. Vincent de Paul has been changed. We were given $1000.00 credit at the food bank from Wakefern-Shoprite. This money has already been used. On March 6th we received $1000.00 from the East Fishkill Rotary. On February 13th  we went to the food bank and spent $3217.76 and returned home with 3828 pounds of food. On March 12th Joanne and Chuck went to the food bank and returned with 3220 pounds of food. They spent  $2284.92 but after using the $1000.00 Wakefern-Shoprite credit it was $1284.92. Bucky, Laura, Ann, Kay, Carole, Linda and Ralph helped to put this away. A new check list has been made for checking the Easter baskets before they are given out. We will try them to see if this makes things easier. Carole needs some volunteers to help pick up the food donated at  other locations   and bring it to the food  closet. Carole ended the meeting at 8:02 pm with a prayer. . Submitted by Barbara Yannaco