We had the pleasure of receiving a visit from the lovely and smart Daisies of Troop 1264 from Oak Hill Elementary School. They loaded us up with donations and then took a tour of our SPAN house. Thank you very much to the leaders for facilitating this visit!

Cub Scout Pack 918 from Oak Hill Elementary School participated in the annual Scouting for Food event on March 24, and delivered all the food they collected to SPAN! Thanks to all who helped!

Many Easter meal baskets were donated so SPAN families could have a nice Easter dinner. They included $25 grocery meal cards, basic food, decorative napkins, egg-dying kits, stuffed animals and candy for the kids. Thanks to all of our generous donors and member churches who participated!

Brooklyn Community United Methodist Church of Brooklyn Park is our newest member church. We welcome the congregation, as well as its leader, Pastor Kimberly Brown-Whale. Besides becoming a voting member of SPAN's board, BCUMC members will also be eligible for SPAN's "primary area" benefits for food and financial assistance.

Congratulations to the two "winning" neighborhoods from the S(o)uper Bowl Neighborhood Food Drive: Shipley's Choice, with co-captains Desiree and Brent Mancha; and Park Ridge, with team captain Kristie Kinslow. Thirty-eight Severna Park neighborhoods donated over 8,000 items to SPAN and Asbury Church Assistance Network on Super Bowl day. We consider them all winners! Thanks to all who participated, and thanks also to Julie Shay, director of Good Neighbors Group, for organizing this amazing event! Awards were presented at a fundraising dinner for GNG at Cafe Mezzanotte on February 27.

On February 4, 2018, we experienced the magic that is community. As 38 local neighborhoods collaborated to fill SPAN's and Asbury Church Assistance Network's pantries, we saw the goodness and generosity that makes our little corner of Maryland such a wonderful place to live! Thank you Julie Shay and Good Neighbors Group for organizing the S(o)uper Bowl Neighborhood Food Drive that will feed our neighbors in need for many weeks to come! And thank you to all the neighborhood captains who showed up in the pouring rain for this cause. 

Sharon Tegler visited SPAN during the Holiday Caring distribution event in December, and wrote a wonderful article. Read it here:

http://www.capitalgazette.com/neighborhoods/ac-cm-around-the-park-1214-story.html

Many of you saw us marching down Benfield Rd. in the Severna Park Fourth of July Parade, pushing shopping carts and collecting food and cash. We were overwhelmed by the generosity we encountered! Thank you to Sarah Kent and Woods Church's Praise Band for helping us out with announcements and volunteers.

We want to thank all of our other donors and volunteers who braved the heat to make the day a huge win, especially Bookkeeper Linda Moore, her daughter, and three grandchildren, who stole the hearts of the crowd, and SPAN board member Karen Myers and her husband Craig! We collected hundreds of pounds of food and almost $700 in cash donations. Thank you to Kathy Taylor for making our signs, and to the Benfield Safeway for loaning us the shopping carts and donating the balloons.