Boca Helping Hands is a community-based organization whose mission is solving hunger and crisis situations for the most needy. They run a soup kitchen, a food pantry and, supply meals to the homebound. They also provide crisis assistance and job mentoring. They work at providing solutions to hunger and poverty in assisting low-income families, the elderly and the homeless in becoming self-reliant. Volunteers are a huge source of manpower in helping to make a difference. The Food Center has been in operation for 13 years and is open 6 days a week. Over the years, HOT purchased a freezer for the Food Center, heavy duty pots and pans and commercial kitchen utensils, a hand truck and meat slicer, a new air conditioner unit for the kitchen, a forklift, a freight elevator and a walk in cooler.
At the time we were finalizing this section we were told BHH’s current needs included (1) Sixteen portable coolers for daily delivery of hot meals to homebound shut-ins, at a total cost of $2,463; (2) Six new tires for the Boca Helping Hands truck including installation, mounting and balancing for a total cost of $1,706. Our donors can’t designate for either of these specific needs because we decided not to allow BHH to risk spoilage of food or allow their trucks to drive around with bald tires and sent them the $4,169.
But this gives you the idea of what kind of needs they face all the time and designated gifts of $100, $500, $1,000, $1,800, $2,500, $5,000 and up will let us build a fund that will allow us to make sure that they will not have to stop there critical operations for wanting of a piece of necessary equipment.
Their wish list also included a new 24-foot Box Truck with refrigeration capabilities with an estimated cost at $100,000. While we do not expect any of our donors to come up with the whole $100,000, if any one or more of our donors want to make a contribution of 3/4 of the cost by November 15, 2011, HOT will take up to $25,000 out of undesignated funds and will work with Boca Helping Hands to insure that that the truck is purchased at the cheapest possible price