Chatham Village Apartments Celebrate End of Summer with Food Distributions and Annual Picnic

In the ongoing effort to enhance her residents' food security situations, Martha Venegas, our PSCDC Director of Services for Orange County, continued providing food distribution opportunities at Chatham Village Apartments throughout the month of August. The heavily-attended food distributions have become an essential staple within the Orange County community, with providing an availability to healthy groceries being one of Martha's top priorities.

Martha hosted a total of six food distributions - three sessions of the special Park-in Market program and three sessions of the Tuesday food distributions. Providing our distributions with food supplies and volunteers have been our long-time community partners at Second Harvest Food Bank, Tustin Family and Youth Center, Meals on Wheels Orange County, and the City of Tustin. Through their generous donations, Chatham Village residents receive a variety of food supplies each week which includes milk, vegetables, cans of foods, eggs, cereal, chicken, rice, cheese, and many more. In August, 161 households and 405 residents received extra assistance from the Park-in Market program while 196 total residents attended the extra Tuesday food distributions.

Martha also hosted the community's annual End-of-Summer picnic in August as a perfect way to wrap up the summer season. The community came out to enjoy a day of socializing, playing, and enjoying free food. Activities that residents enjoyed included decorating their own heart-shaped cookies, playing musical chairs, and participating in a raffle! Mr. Tony Miller provided the food for the occasion by donating 25 pizzas and two cakes that were for the raffle. Leftover pizza boxes were also raffled off to be brought home by attending residents.

As the seasons change, Chatham Village Apartment residents are highly anticipating the return of more annual community events such as the pumpkin carving contest and Thanksgiving potluck. Martha is determined in securing food supplies for her community through connecting with other community partners.