Community Missions of Niagara Frontier Inc. received a $30,000 grant from the Patrick P. Lee Foundation Tuesday. The funds will be used to purchase a year’s worth of food for its community soup kitchen located in Niagara Falls.
The organization provided more than 27,000 meals to the low income community in 2013. Community Missions Executive Director Robyn Krueger says the funds will help them to serve more people in need.
“This grant is a tremendous gift to us. What it does for us is we get a lot of staples during food drives and from the Food Bank of Western New York, but what’s often missing are the fresh vegetables, the meats, and the fruits and so what this check will do is allow us to purchase those items to make them available for both our community kitchen and then if there is items that are left over from that purchase then we’ll be able to offer them to our food pantry clients,” said Krueger.
Patrick P. Lee Foundation Executive Director of Mark O’Donnell says Community Missions originally asked for $10,000, but he says the foundation felt they could do more.
“We’ve never done that before, at least since I’ve been there, but basically they asked for four months and we said well we think we can do a little bit more, let’s make it a year. So, it was the grant committee who came together and said let’s make a difference and let’s try to help them. I have to tell you we’re very impressed with the staff here and the passion that they show and that is usually a big part of whether or not we give a grant.”
Community Missions serves a variety of people in the Niagara Falls region from children and adults with mental health issues to people returning back into society after incarceration.