Joyful Harvest Neighborhood Center

Joyful Harvest will be closed the week of February 20-24, for winter break, we will reopen Monday February 27, 2012 at 2:00pm. If you need to reach us during the winter break, please email us at joyfull@gwi.net

We are looking for a few good walkers! As we finished our first week at our new home, it has come to our attention that some of the younger kids in order to come to the center after school need to be walked from our old location on Water Street over to our new location on Main Street. This is a great volunteer opportunity for someone local with a flexible schedule, volunteers would meet the kids on Water Street at 3:20pm, walk them over to the new location on Main Street and at 5:00pm we would need volunteers to meet the kids at the center and walk them back over to Water Street.

All volunteers who work directly with the kids must undergo a criminal background check and attend a one hour training session. If interested, call us at 286-9105 or email joyfull@gwi.net

Our wonderful new neighbor, Little Joey’s Pizza at 140 Main Street who has pretty awesome pizza  is pledging $2 of every extra large and jumbo pizza bought on Wednesday and Thursday nights to Joyful Harvest. We are thrilled to have a local business partnering with us and ask that if you are thinking of ordering out pizza mid-week that you give Little Joey’s a try. Such ventures are a great way to support local businesses in this economy as well as assisting us.

Joyful Harvest is open again! After some long hours and lots of hard work, sweat and maybe even a few tears, we have reopened at our wonderful new location 128 Main Street (across the street from the old Reny’s building).

Regular drop in program hours are Monday thru Thursday 2:30-5:00pm

Art Van meets Tuesdays 4:30-6:00pm open to tweens and teens

Girl Scouts meets Tuesdays and Wednesdays 5:00pm-7:00pm

We will be offering additional programming very soon, including another session of last year’s very popular Cooking Matters to ME program a collaborative program in partnership with the Good Shepherd Food Bank. Also after a long hiatus, we will be bringing back parenting classes…stay tuned

Right now though we do have a critical need for adult volunteers, FMI contact 286-9105 or email joyfull@gwi.net

Thanks to the generosity of many volunteers who not only gave their hands and their backs but their trucks, trailers and dollies, Joyful Harvest is officially in our new home at 128 Main Street in Biddeford. The next step in the process is getting everything set up which will take a little time, we are currently waiting for the phone company to set up our phone service, as a result we will be unavailable by phone until Monday January 9, 2012. If you need to reach us, please email us at joyfull@gwi.net

The afterschool program will reopen Tuesday January 17, 201 at 2:45pm.

The final numbers are in and this year’s 3rd Annual Kid’s Shopping and Pancake Event was a smashing success! The primary event that includes breakfast , a visit with Santa and shopping saw 143 kids on Saturday alone! Close to 250 ate the wonderful breakfast that featured pancakes, sausage, peaches, coffee and orange juice. Thanks to a wonderful toy fairy, all kids who saw Santa received a small gift. This year’s participants came from all over, the majority were Biddeford residents but we had folks who came from places as far away as Gorham and Troy! On the second day, Monday December 19 at our office we saw 30 kids stop by and shop. Last year the program saw 133 kids over 2 days, so this is a sizable increase.

Many families that were attendance stated they were looking for ways to celebrate the holiday without breaking the bank and our annual event which is free to all, most certainly did that!

Thank you to all who donated, volunteered and helped make this a great event.

Our winter 2011/2012 newsletter is out and available. To view it or download it, just click on the “About Us” tab at the top of the page, and you’ll find a link there to the newsletter. Soon we plan to have older issues archived there as well.

Once again Joyful Harvest was asked to participate the Saco Museum’s annual Festival of Trees, the kids with the help of Frankie Dailey of the Art Van program designed and created recyclable decorations to decorate two youth trees. It’s one of the many ways  that Joyful Harvest seeks to get the kids involved in the greater community. The trees will be on display at the Saco Museum at 371 Main Street in Saco until December 31, 2011.