A group of local Morton Middle School students are learning in a hands-on fashion about helping families that are suffering from economic hard times in their own city.

The CFC Food Pantry recently received donations of both food and money from the Fall River Morton Middle School’s Comets Care community service group.Comets Care is an after-school club for 8th grade students that focuses on involvement in the local community, under the leadership of Morton Principal Sheila Fisher and teachers Kathy Kelly, Chris Blanchette, Jennifer Brakefield,Dawn Farinha,Karen Ouellette and Audrey Viera.

The students in the Comets Care club found several inventive ways to help the Citizens for Citizens, Inc. Food Pantry in its mission of providing bags of healthy food to low-income families and individuals on a monthly basis. The 8th grade students in Comets Care held a bake sale during this fall’s parent-teacher conferences with a total of $300 in profits made to support the food distribution services of the CFC Food Pantry, along with  monies  raised by soliciting donations directly from Morton Middle School staff members

Citizens for Citizens, Inc. is very appreciative of the Food Pantry contributions made by the Comets Care club members. These youngsters are learning at an early age that it can be rewarding and satisfying to help others in need in their local community.

Turkeys, and all the other food items a family might need to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner, were distributed by CFC to 400 families on November 16, 2011. Once again, Citizens for Citizens, Inc. made it possible for local, low-income families to celebrate the upcoming holiday with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in their homes.

Barbara Travis, CFC Community Organizer, and Chrystal Arpa, the diligent CFC Food Pantry Coordinator, orchestrated the distribution of the turkeys with a great deal of help from the youth members of the CFC Family Planning Program’s “Making Proud Choices” group.

During the day on November 16, the turkeys arrived by truck and were offloaded into the main hall of CFC’s Griffin Street headquarters, along with fresh vegetables, stuffing mix, and all the other items that make a Thanksgiving dinner delectable and memorable.

Barbara Travis began a long day’s work by making telephone calls to recipient households, informing them that the dinners would be ready for distribution at 5:00 P.M. A waiting line had started to form by 4:30 PM for the holiday dinner distribution, and it was 8:00 PM before the final turkey dinners were given out. Throughout the afternoon, Crystal Arpa, and any CFC staffer with a little spare time, helped arrange the turkey dinner items and packed them in bags for families to carry home for Thanksgiving Day.

The turkeys and other food provisions were provided by the Greater Boston Food Bank, along with generous donations from the Fall River area community.