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Letters to the EditorsFrom Greek Festival, a 'thank you'
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 16, 2000 Editor: On behalf of the Greek Festival co-chairmen, committee chairpersons and all volunteer workers who unselfishly gave their time and energy in making this year's festival the best ever, I would like to thank all the people who attended our three-day festival during the last weekend in October. It was extremely gratifying for us to receive unsolicited comments from people stating how much they enjoyed themselves and complimenting us on the quality of the food and pastries -- and that they would be back again for next year's festival. We thank you for all those nice comments. A special thanks to Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church for allowing us to again use their parking facilities so we could shuttle festival guests during those times when we were experiencing overflows at our church parking areas. Also, extra special thanks to the Young Marines who helped direct traffic at both parking lots. Our sincere best wishes for the upcoming holiday season and a happy and healthy new year. We look forward to seeing you at next year's Greek Festival.
'Awesome' response to second food driveEditor: Last year Citrus County Harvest did our first- ever food drive on Make a Difference Day with three of the post offices in Citrus County. We were so successful, collecting 15,000 pounds of food, we knew we had to revisit this idea. Our Harvest Board, overwhelmed with the idea of taking this effort countywide to all post offices, knew we could fill an immediate need for our three social service agencies that feed the hungry, with one single effort. Harvest accepted the challenge. Our Make a Difference Day project would be a countywide food drive involving all nine post offices. Our recipients would be CUB, Daystar and Salvation Army. No other single effort could have produced the results we achieved on Oct. 28. Our communitywide effort yielded almost three times what we did last year -- more than 42,000 pounds. Awesome! These agencies are going to work from a surplus in their pantries during the holidays instead of running on empty. You didn't have to be a part of the nuts and bolts of this food drive to get excited and energized. Everywhere, driving through your neighborhoods that day on your way to work, shopping or whatever, you couldn't help but notice all the plastic bags with food hanging from mailboxes. It gave me goosebumps. Our community and our postal employees deserve a standing ovation. Without these two components, there would be no success story. To the many businesses who helped drive this message to the attention of our community either by news, radio or TV media, monetary donations or simply a donation of your professional expertise, Harvest thanks you. To our community volunteers, social service agency volunteers, student volunteer groups (National Honor Society and National Junior Honor Society), and Sprint's Community Relations Team, we thank you. I truly believe that as long as Harvest continues to raise the level of awareness in our community that hunger exists, only then will we realize our goal of having these agencies work with a surplus 365 days, instead of just at the holidays. These agencies serve 2,000-5,000 families a month. Those figures could easily equate to more than 20,000 people. According to the latest study on hunger, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that more than 10 percent of Americans faced hunger last year or worried that their food would run out. Seventeen percent of our nation's children, about 12-million kids, did not get enough to eat. What the residents of Citrus County have done this Make a Difference Day is truly outstanding. We cannot allow ourselves to think it is ever enough.
Share your viewsThe Citrus Times welcomes letters from readers for publication. Because of space limitations, letters should be of reasonable length. Letters may be edited for clarity, taste and length. All letters must be signed and must contain the writer's address and telephone number. Addresses and telephone numbers will not be printed. Send your letter to Citrus Times, 301 W Main St., Inverness, FL 33450. Send letters by electronic mail (in text only format) to citrus@sptimes.com
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