Two distributions in honor of Juneteenth in partnership with Morgan Lewis. Families at Red Top and Hampshire Tower Apartments received mushrooms, potatoes, bananas, strawberries, asparagus, spinach, red peppers, baked goods, fresh chicken, eggs, casseroles, canned goods, and rice/ beans. Our thanks to the Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius team (Rachel, Mike, Adam, Heather, Logan, Karen, Emily, Mona, Kristen Jake, Danny, Kendall, Brad, Jack, Antoinette Amy, Veronica), Imperfect Foods, TPSS Co-op, Ward 4 Mutual Aid, HTA site coordinator Doris, and our team (John and Ben).

Our deepest thanks to Trader Joe’s in Bethesda for partnering with us! Your donations of produce, meat, bread, and flowers are being used to brighten the day of families in need. We are using your wonderful food to support families in need in Takoma Park at our distributions as well as helping 3 amazing Takoma Park community food pantries run by Lara Wilson, SatJiwan Ikle-Khalsa, and Kirsten Slade.

We ran out of food at our last distribution. It was heartbreaking. We never want to leave anyone empty-handed so we always bring extra food, but we didn’t anticipate a 25% increase in just one week. This week we learned that although businesses are opening up and the CDC has said that we don’t need to wear our masks if we are vaccinated and outside that life is only returning to normal for some of us. There are still many families and individuals in need in our community. We must continue to pull together to make sure that everyone is taken care of.

Wonderful Pfizer vaccine clinic at the Takoma Park Community Center on Sunday, May 16, 2021. Our thanks to Mayor Kate Stewart, Jessica Clarke/ City of Takoma Park, MD – Municipal Government, Jhennie Libongco-Barbour / Continuum Health, Dr. Rimple Gabri/ Giant Food Pharmacies, Amerigroup, and our STM team (Doris, Kate, Louise, Sara, Pablo, Ana, Violeta, Samuel, Alex, Darren, Jody, Andrew, Allison, Allegra, Karyn, Ethan, Everett, Laura, De, Ally, Dawn, Danielle, Gina, Libby, Stella, Marion) for bringing vaccines, healthcare, and food for those in need to #takomapark!

Signup for the second Pfizer clinic on Sunday, June 6 here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0c45afaa22a02-vaccine1

Small Things Matter in partnership with the City of Takoma Park, Giant Pharmacy, and Continuum Healthcare Services is bringing the Pfizer vaccine to Takoma Park on Sunday, May 16 from 10am-4pm at the TP Community Center Foot Bridge. Children 12-17 will be vaccinated along with adults. Both first and second doses shots are available. Registration suggested, but there will also be a limited amounts of walk-ins. Second doses will be scheduled on site for Sunday, June 6.

STM will arrange for additional Pfizer vaccine clinics in the coming weeks.

One of STM’s passions is promoting reading so today we went around #takomapark and filled up Little Free Libraries with lots of amazing children’s books! Please check them out!

Great distribution of produce, pantry, and masks for families at Red Top at Sawa’s Circle. Our thanks to Wegmans, Wegmans, MoCo Food Task Force, and our team ( Wei, Sean, Amber, Allison, Seth, Mike Anne, Kai, Sawa, Doris, John). Special thanks to Michael at Wegmans Germantown who presented our work to his co-workers and set up a special shelf of donations for us.

STM was honored to have their work showcased on News 7 Helping Hands in partnership with Easterns Automotive. Kidd O’Shea and Bonnie Wood came out to meet our team and Joel Bassam, the Director of Marketing presented us with a substantial donation for our Kokua Foods Program. You can watch their news piece here. We are grateful for all the wonderful support! If you would like to help us reach to support our efforts to get funds for our summer work please consider making a small donation to our GoFundMe.

March 11, 2020 marks the day the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. STM’s Kokua Foods Program has been steadily growing since then, expanding from serving 300 families with fresh produce once each month to serving over 1000 families 2-4 times each month with increased food services including hot meals, casseroles, sandwiches, nonperishable food staples totally over 1 million pounds of food as well as non-food items such as masks, toiletry kits, cleaning kits, and clothing.

Thankfully we are all closer to being vaccinated, but the need in our community will not go away overnight and many are on a long path to achieving financial security. Please consider making a donation today to help support our efforts.

Thank you! We couldn’t do what we do without all of the support from our members, our partners, and our community.

photos by Lisa Helfert lisahelfert.com