I received a letter last week from Nancy Holden, Executive Director of PROP. PROP is a local private non-profit human services organization that has been operating in Eden Prairie since 1971. The acronym stands for “People Reaching Out to other People“. Among their many activities, PROP runs a food bank. For the past three years during the City’s National Night Out event, we have also organized a food donation drive for PROP’s food bank. In her letter to me from last week, Nancy Holden reported that the National Night Out food drive netted 3,859 pounds of food this year. Given the wet weather during this year’s NNO event, I’d say that total is pretty good.
The summer months are tough months in the food banking business. Donations are typically down with people on vacation or managing changes in their personal schedules with kids out of school. Consumption from food banks in the summer, however, usually moves up since kids in needy families are getting fed at school for one or two meals each day. Nancy says that in July 2006, the PROP food bank distributed over 22,000 pounds of food.
3,859 pounds of food donated to PROP from National Night Out is good. But you can see that the demand is high. Anything you can do for PROP, such as giving them money or food, is a good thing for PROP, and a good thing for Eden Prairie too.
