Food & Friends Charity Class this Sunday @TranquilSpace Dupont

I am super excited to be teaching the 2nd Sunday charity class benefitting Food and Friends at Tranquil Space in Dupont Circle!

The fall is upon us, and especially during the month of November my thoughts often turn to the purpose of Thanksgiving, being thankful and oh so grateful for everything and everyone I have in my life. As I was thinking about what type of charity I would want to host this month, I could not think of anything more appropriate than Food and Friends.

Food and Friends fosters a sense of community doing so with compassion for individuals living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other life-challenging illnesses by preparing and delivering nutrition based meals and groceries in Washington, DC metropolitan community.

I had the wonderful experience in early October to volunteer at their Fort Totten facility (which is beautiful and very organized with *friendly* staff). There are various tasks the volunteers can do, from cooking in the kitchen to packing lunches, to stocking their ‘grocery shelves’, to delivering the food to the clients. I had the amazing opportunity to deliver food to 10 clients at their homes. Seeing the smiles on the clients faces when they had a visitor knocking on their door (who was also smilingJ), was such a fulfilling experience for me, as I hope it was for the clients as well.  I left that day feeling very happy to know that this organization exists in DC, especially after having had no idea such great work and service was being provided on a deep personal level to a population that needs to have the support of a caring community.

You can pop into their facility for an hour to help in the kitchen or take meals to clients, or you can organize large groups of your friends or coworkers for half or full day volunteer efforts. Food and Friends is only able to do what they do through volunteers and donations…and it’s amazing to know and experience this, plus you can be proud to know that in 2010, Food & Friends served more than 975,150 meals to more than 2,759 individuals. Some more great factoids:

Food & Friends Serves

Persons with HIV/AIDS -- 45%
Persons with Cancer -- 44%
Persons with Other Life-Challenging Illnesses -11%
Clients Under 18 Years of Age -- 16%

Hope to see you on Sunday in support of this friendly organization for an all levels yoga class!