Join the fight against hunger in Greater New Bedford by simply walking to your mailbox on Saturday, May 12th! Join the National Association of Letter Carriers SE MA Merged Branch 18, the US Postal Service and United Way of Greater New Bedford for the 26th annual Letter Carriers’ Food Drive and help us Stamp Out Hunger!

“Stamp Out Hunger is the largest One-day food drive, and United Way is proud to be an active participant,” said Victoria Grasela, Director of Marketing & Community Relations United Way of Greater New Bedford. “Each year the food collected through Stamp Out Hunger helps to stock the shelves of local food pantries for weeks.”

To participate in Stamp Out Hunger, leave a non-perishable food item or bag of items (every little bit helps!) by your mailbox or on your porch. Food will be collected by your letter carrier during your normal mail delivery. Non-perishable food may include: cereals, beans, rice, canned meats, tuna, soups, vegetables, peanut butter, jellies or jams, pasta, tomato sauces, pancake mix or juices. For safety reasons, we ask that no glass containers be donated to avoid breakage and that food has not expired.

Food collected by letter carriers throughout the day will be brought to local post offices where it is sorted and packed for food pantries to take back to stock their shelves. Pantries benefiting from Stamp Out Hunger locally include Catholic Social Services, The Family Pantry- Damien’s Place, M.O. Life Food Pantry, PACE, The Salvation Army, and Shepherd’s Pantry.

Since the beginning of the drive, nearly 1.3 billion pounds of food has been collected, 70 million pounds of that collected locally! Each year the drive collects between 40,000- 70,000 pounds of food for local pantries.

Through its Hunger Commission Network and partnership with the local postal workers union, United Way serves as a local convener for this effort.

Anyone interested in volunteering to assist letter carriers in collecting the food on their routes throughout Greater New Bedford during the course of the day may arrange to do so by calling Richard Drolet at 508-801-2881 by Thursday evening, May 10th.

Be sure to join us Saturday, May 12th, and leave a non-perishable item or bag of items by your mailbox or on your porch and help us Stamp Out Hunger in Greater New Bedford!

The New Bedford Police Union helped raise over $20,000 for the Special Olympics of Massachusetts today with their annual Polar Plunge at East Beach at Fort Taber. Paul Santos Live had a chance to chat with some of the participants before and after the plunge.

United New Bedford & Centro Luzo Americano Club Inc., invite you to Thanksgiving Dinner from 12:00pm-4:00pm at 34 Beetle Street, New Bedford on Thursday, November 24, 2016.

Two New Bedford natives, Anthony Barros and Jordyn Pina comprise “The Foundation” – a group that gives back to the community by helping kids in need. They donate backpacks and school supplies and so far have helped dozens of kids.

Initially done solely with their own personal money, they quickly discovered that the need far exceeded the demand, and that need went beyond backpacks and school supplies. There are many kids who will go without. For this reason they created a GoFundMe Page to help with a winter clothing drive to give away coats, gloves and hats and more to those who will need them.

“If you have used coats, gloves, hats, socks, tooth paste or anything that we can give away to the kids, please help.” pleaded Anthony. “We call this group “The Foundation” because we believe the foundation of a home is the strongest part of the house – it supports the rest of the home, we believe the same concept with our community our kids are our foundation the stronger group of kids the stronger community we have!”

Calling all Neighbors – Sleepy’s and Big Brothers Big Sisters would like your help! Please stop by your local Sleepy’s Showroom today and help our community and underprivileged youth by donating clothing items in need.

About Big Brothers Big Sisters:

For more than 100 years, Big Brothers Big Sisters has operated under the belief that inherent in every child is the ability to succeed and thrive in life. As the nation’s largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, Big Brothers Big Sisters makes meaningful, monitored matches between adult volunteers (“Bigs”) and children (“Littles”), ages 6 through 18, in communities across the country. We develop positive relationships that have a direct and lasting effect on the lives of young people.

Mobile Loaves & Fishes and Odies Place is asking people in New Bedford to imagine what it would be like live outdoors with nowhere to call home. Not everyone gets to go home each night through their own front door into a nice warm, safe environment. Some people live on the streets and take their chances against the cold, crime, and fear they won’t wake up in the morning. Brian Harrington from Odies Place Rescue is asking for people to come together on June 25th and help make a difference.

Odies Place Rescue in conjunction with Mobile Loaves & Fishes would like people in New Bedford to come forward and donate a new or used backpack to the homeless and less fortunate. By donating socks, underwear and jeans, it can help change a person’s life who lives on the street.

A team from the charity will be at the PAACA, 360 Coggeshall St. New Bedford, MA on June 25th 10 am – 9 pm. For those who would like to help and donate important items, they are being asked to visit the venue or email odiesplace508@gmail.com where someone can pick up the items.

New Bedford Guide reaches between 500,000 – 1.5 million people each week, primarily in eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. We offer a full range of video and marketing services and have strongly supported charities and non-profits since we started NewBedfordGuide.com in 2010. Here are our official non-profit guidelines:

Charities

We offer charities a 100% discount on most of our marketing services. We define a charity as an organization that does not have a marketing budget or pay salaries. Basically, organizations that are run by volunteers and put all their money into their cause. For these organizations we can offer:

• No charge listings in our event calendar. The only requirement is your organization must post the events to Facebook from a Page using Facebook’s event service. This allows us to automatically pull your events from Facebook and place them into our event calendar. Or you can simply send us the Facebook event listing (if you only have a few events each year). E-mail your Facebook page ID to info@newbedfordguide.com.
• No charge press release publishing. E-mail press releases to info@newbedfordguide.com.
• When available, we can offer video services to include a video of your event or a Facebook Live Stream interview promoting your event. To book this service e-mail info@newbedfordguide.com.

Non-Profits

We can offer all other non-profits (those we do not consider charities) a 50% discount on most of our marketing packages. These packages include spotlight articles, spotlight videos, live stream spotlights, banner advertising on NewBedfordGuide.com and other services. Contact info@newbedfordguide.com to set up an appointment.

New Bedford Guide is a small business with a limited staff. We feel we provide an amazing FREE service to well over 1 million people each month and love taking care of non-profits. To continue this service we rely on companies sponsoring our content and marketing with us. Contactinfo@newbedfordguide.com today to support New Bedford Guide and promote your business to millions of locals. 

Please join the New Bedford Firefighters’ Union and United Way of Greater New Bedford in their 17th Annual Toy Drive to provide toys to local youth this holiday season. New, unwrapped toys, gift cards or movie tickets can be donated at locations throughout the SouthCoast through Monday, December 14th.

“Families in our community are making the tough decisions whether to put food on the table or get their children presents for Christmas,” said Victoria Grasela, Marketing & Community Relations Officer at United Way. “Our toy drive with the Firefighters is meant to help those families and provide peace of mind knowing the kids will be taken care of this year.”

Thousands of toys are collected and distributed to agencies in Greater New Bedford each year. From trucks and dolls to games and books, items for all ages newborn – teens are needed. Gift cards and movie tickets make great gifts for teenage recipients.

All of the items collected will be separated and delivered to local nonprofit organizations that serve youth. Some organizations that have received toys from the drive in the past include: Greater New Bedford Women’s Center, Schwartz Center for Children, NorthStar Learning Centers, Donovan House and HarbOUR House/ Family Preservation Program. These agencies will distribute the toys to children through their various holiday activities.

New, unwrapped toys or gift cards can be dropped off at any of the following businesses:

•Any New Bedford Fire Station from 8am-6pm
•Ashley Ford (395 Mt. Pleasant St, New Bedford)
•Baarsvik Souza Orthodontics (1403 Tucker Rd, Dartmouth)
•Buster’s Sports Bar & Grille (227 State Rd, Dartmouth)
•Century House (107 S. Main St, Acushnet)
•Club Fit Dartmouth (Dartmouth Mall)
•Doctors Express (119 Coggeshall St, New Bedford)
•Dollar General (893 Church St, New Bedford)
•First Citizen Credit Union Branches:
-271 Union Street, New Bedford
-570 North Front Street, New Bedford
-1341 Cove Road, New Bedford
-2 Fairhaven Road, Mattapoisett
•Flagship Cinemas (500 Kings Hwy, New Bedford)
•Glaser Glass (1265 Purchase St, New Bedford)
•Knuckleheads Bar & Grille (85 MacArthur Dr, New Bedford)
•Lowe’s (2421 Cranberry Hwy, Wareham)
•New Bedford Credit Union (1150 Purchase St or 120 Dawson St, New Bedford)
•New Bedford Housing Authority Office (134 South Second St)
•PharmaHealth Pharmacy (132 Alden Rd, Fairhaven & 535 Faunce Corner Rd, Dartmouth)
•Rockland Trust (133 Ashley Blvd, New Bedford)
•Shooters Billiards (2112 Acushnet Ave, New Bedford)
•Star Oil Co. (228 Rockdale Ave, New Bedford)
•TJMaxx (444 State Rd, Dartmouth)
•Treeland Nursery (46 Rockdale Ave, New Bedford)
•Zapp (266 Barnett Blvd., New Bedford)

Donate toys now until Monday, December 14th. These toys will be distributed to local organizations serving youth throughout New Bedford.

Please do not contact the New Bedford Fire Department with toy requests. Please contact United Way of Greater New Bedford with any questions at 508-994-9625 ext. 10.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 351 Elm Street, Dartmouth, will host a “Breakfast with Santa” on Sunday, December 13, 2015 for the children in our community and their families. Events begin at 9:00AM with Santa’s arrival and a brief Children’s Advent Service. The breakfast and events are free of charge for both children and adults. Space is limited to 200 people. Free tickets are available by sending an email to breakfastwithsanta1213@gmail.com by December 9. Tickets are also available in the church office on Sunday mornings.

Participants may bring a non-perishable food item to benefit the Food Pantry of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in New Bedford. A free will offering to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital will be taken. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Everyone in the community is welcome to attend.

The Fairhaven Police Department will be partnering with Safezones.org to sponsor the 5th Annual Safe Zones Fill the Bus Toy Drive. Please join us by dropping off a new, unwrapped toy at the Fairhaven Police Station Saturday, December 12th from 10am until 4pm.

Our goal is to “Fill the Bus” with plenty of toys to distribute to needy families throughout our community in time for the Christmas holiday. Toys for children of all ages are needed. Although the “Fill the Bus Toy Drive” will be held December 12th, toys can still be dropped of at the Fairhaven Police Department from now until Christmas Eve.

We are asking for toys for children of all ages to brighten the Christmas holiday for less fortunate children in our community. All contributions are welcome and will be greatly appreciated. The members of the Fairhaven Police Department and the Volunteers at Safezones.org would like to wish everyone a very happy and healthy holiday season and extend our best wishes for a wonderful New Year.