The New Path is a nonprofit organization in Tipp City. It serves the greater Miami Valley area by helping families secure basic needs. It opened as a single Food Pantry in 1980, and now facilitates 19 programs providing food, clothing, cars, furniture, medical equipment and life skills. The organization is an affiliate, nonprofit partner with Ginghamsburg.
Regionally, each Meijer Simply Give campaign aims to stock the shelves of nearly 200 food pantries in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. The program encourages customers and other groups to purchase $10 Meijer Food Pantry Donation cards, which are converted into gift cards for a local food pantry.
Meijer typically seeds each Simply Give program with $100,000 in gift cards divided among all the supported food pantries. This year, however, the corporation will donate $1 million to the Simply Give program. This program runs for 10 weeks three times per year. Since the program started in November 2008 more than 3.8 million, about 23 million meals, have been donated to approximately 400 food pantries in the Midwest.
Meijer is based in Grand Rapids, Mich.
New Path also works as a United Way Agency fostering community involvement to build bridges of understanding across socio-economic cultures. For more details about this organization, go online to www.newpathoutreach.org.
Ginghamsburg, a mega-church with more than 4,600 people in weekly attendance, serves more than 40,000 people annually in Miami and Montgomery counties through its outreach services. It’s also committed $5.6 million for humanitarian projects in the Sudan. But hunger has no geographical boundaries.
“Hunger is a growing problem in the community, and we are so excited that the Meijer Simply Give program is able to help our food pantry partners address a critical need,” said Meijer spokeswoman Christina Fecher. “The generosity of our customers and team members, as well as the continued commitment from our pantry partners, is truly inspiring. We cannot thank them enough.”
And the Dayton area families who can replenish their own pantries out of this generosity will certainly be thankful, as well.
About the Author