Our View: Breathtaking Generosity

Longtime readers know that we run two Helping Neighbors campaigns for the Family Pantry each year, one in the summer and one around the holidays. And during each campaign, going back as long as we can remember, there’ve been white-knuckle moments when we were certain we’d fall short of our fundraising target. 

By now, we should know better.

 But having raised only about $11,000 in the two weeks following the busy July 4 holiday, we figured we’d set too high a goal for the campaign. After all, $110,000 is the most ambitious target ever for the 10-year-old summer campaign.

 And the stakes are high. The funds donated by Cape Cod Chronicle readers are an essential part of the Family Pantry’s financial operations. With families facing breathtaking inflation at the gas pump, the grocery checkout line, and in their monthly stack of bills, the Family Pantry has become an important bulwark for many local families struggling to make ends meet.

 We were pretty sure we were on track to fall short of our fundraising goal by Labor Day. We even put out an appeal in our Weekend Update Sunday warning that a surge of donations was needed. But when we got our weekly report from the Family Pantry, we had to triple-check the numbers. 

Cape Cod Chronicle readers had apparently decided it was time to give.

There were plenty of modest donations. A gift of just $10, matched dollar-for-dollar, helps the Pantry provide 80 nutritious meals, thanks to the organization’s purchase power and its partnership with the U.S.D.A. and the Greater Boston Food Bank. Those small gifts make a big difference.

But not all of the gifts were small. There were incredibly generous donations of $5,000 and $10,000, and on Monday, a man drove up to the Family Pantry office, handed the staff a check for $20,000, said thank you and walked away. 

Absolutely breathtaking. 

All of the gifts so far have brought our total to over $86,000, putting us well within striking range of this year’s goal. Thank you for your contributions! But, please, don’t let up the pressure; we still have more than $20,000 to raise before the summer ends. And we can’t stand the white knuckles anymore.