Introducing the advent of a better future for our neighbors.
Join the One Church Street countdown to $100,000 by January 1! Please consider putting our community on your holiday gift list this year. With 25% of our neighbors struggling with food insecurity, any help you can give us will get us closer to creating a fully accessible dining room for our NOAH guests, as well as a commercial kitchen to host our Food is Medicine program. Don’t miss your chance to be a part of the miracle on Church Street!
Did you know that over 800 of our neighbors were able to access the Food Pantry at our new One Church Street location in October 2024?
As we enter the holiday season full of celebrations, most of which involve food, here’s a tip to help keep your blood sugar in check. Drink Apple Cider Vinegar to stabilize your blood sugar prior to eating carbs. The acetic acid in the vinegar is what helps stabilize your levels. Dilute 1 tablespoon of vinegar in a glass of water or other beverage no more than 20 minutes prior to eating, and drink with a straw.
Happy Thanksgiving! At OCS, as a community-based nutrition hub, we are keenly aware of those who have less, who have no feasts or family, who face challenges, who are far from home, far from help, far from where they long to be–we are with you in our hearts, in our thoughts, and yes, for those who pray–we are with you in our prayers.
You can help put us in the black! Black Friday is a great day to find bargains, and we’re having a clearance sale! We are trying to raise enough money to open our second floor to help clear out food insecurity in our community. We are desperate for our NOAH dining room to be fully accessible to all, and to have a commercial kitchen that’s spacious enough to expand our Food is Medicine program. Your contribution will help our community be a better place to live for everyone. You can’t beat that bang for your buck!
Need to use up that extra pumpkin? Try DIY Pumpkin Spice Lattes! You won’t experience that sugar high/crash by making your own. This recipe makes 1 latte: – 2 shots espresso or 1/2 cup brewed coffee – 3 tbsp pumpkin puree* – 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice – 1 tsp vanilla extract – 1-2 tbsp maple syrup to sweeten – 1 cup milk of choice Directions: – Pour milk into a small pot and heat over low-medium heat until almost simmering. – Make coffee or espresso and pour into a mason jar; add pumpkin puree, pumpkin spice, maple syrup, vanilla. Stir or shake to combine. – Froth milk, or add to jar and shake to combine (can use a milk frother or a blender to make more frothy) – Combine milk with espresso pumpkin mixture and enjoy! *puree, not pumpkin pie filling, which still has all the sugar (Recipe by ambitiouskitchen.com)
Giving Tuesday Breakfast Giveaway – The mission of OCS is to nourish our community in mind, body and spirit. We are the home of the Johnstown Food Pantry and future home of our NOAH Sunday Community Meal. Our Giving Tuesday tradition is to provide you, our neighbors, with a free healthy bagged breakfast on-the-go. Tomorrow, starting at 7 am, if you find yourself at the intersection of Main and Market streets in Johnstown, please roll down your car windows and accept a breakfast from one of our volunteers. Thanks to both Fage and Antonucci Foods for partnering with us on this effort!
One of the goals of our Food is Medicine effort is to promote good childhood nutrition. The CDC reports, “Healthy students are better learners. Research shows that eating habits and healthy behaviors are connected to academic achievement.” Once we have a commercial kitchen at One Church Street we will have room to hold educational nutrition classes for children and their parents.
Make your holiday gifts count! Fulton County’s food insecurity rate — 25%—is the highest of all the counties in the Capital Region. Twenty-five percent of our neighbors are food insecure. Won’t you consider a gift of $25 or more to honor someone special in your life? Just let us know their name and address and we’ll send them an acknowledgement of your generosity.
Save time cooking your holiday recipes by using frozen vegetables. Frozen vegetables keep well, are already chopped, and are cheaper than fresh! Since they are typically frozen when fresh, they are still nutrient dense too.
Celebrate St. Nicholas – the patron saint of children – today with a gift to One Church Street. Children already benefit regularly from the Johnstown Food Pantry, but will be able to benefit from a fully accessible NOAH meal and Food is Medicine program as soon as we can open the second floor.
Tis the season of grazing! Charcuterie boards are a popular party staple. They provide a variety of items from different food groups all in one “dish”. On a smaller scale they make the perfect meal on the go!
Charcuterie Board On The Go
Roll slices of ham or turkey
Diced or sliced cheese
1/4 cup mixed nuts
Handful of olives
1/4 cup cottage cheese
Handful of berries or sliced apple
Place components in a desired container and eat for a balanced lunchable!
Today the weekly NOAH Free Community Meal is at 12pm. We need to move this program into the fully accessible space at One Church Street. You helped us move the OCS Food Pantry into it’s space. We need your help again to finish the job of getting NOAH in as well. Please donate today.
We offer approximately 300-400 pounds of healthy food as giveaways for our NOAH guests each week to increase their good nutrition. Last week we gave away kiwis, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, turnips, eggs, apples and milk.
Distribute relief to your food insecure neighbors with your IRA distribution.
Consider making a Qualified Charitable Distribution from your IRA. A regular IRA distribution is added to your taxable income for the year, but a Qualified Charitable Distribution is not. So, that money was not taxed on its way into your IRA and it’s not taxed on its way out. There are rules, however, so consult their financial advisor!
We are halfway between Thanksgiving and the start of three major holidays. Need a bit of a reset? Try this Balanced Lunch Equation: Protein source (fill 1/4 plate) + Fiber source (fill 1/4 plate) + Vegetables/Fruits (fill 1/2 plate) + dollop of healthy fat + hydrate with water.
The holidays are a time for sharing! You can help your neighbors in need in 5 seconds. Please just share our post with all of your FB friends. One in 4 of our neighbors is food insecure. You can help.
One Church Street was left a significant bequest, which we have invested to generate income we can use for operations. This will help secure the future of One Church Street and the impact we make in our community.
Hosting overnight guests this holiday season? Here’s an easy healthy breakfast item to try. They can be stored in the freezer ahead of time as well!
Egg Muffin Cups
10 large eggs
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup red onion, diced
1/2 cup orange bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup red bell pepper, diced
1 cup spinach, roughly chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease muffin tin with butter, set aside.
In a medium bowl whisk together eggs, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper and salt, set aside.
Divide the diced red onion, bell peppers and spinach between the 12 muffin cups.
Pour in the egg mixture filling each cavity 3/4 of the way full.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the egg muffins look set. Note they will puff up as they cook and will deflate as they cool.
Cool for 2-3 minutes in the pan then remove and serve immediately!
Giving Countdown to 1 – Day 17
Gateway to the Future! With your donation this holiday season, we can reach the full potential of this new space at OCS that is fully accessible thanks to our elevator.
The holiday season can add additional stress to our lives and bodies, which can adversely affect our health – inflammation, for example. To help reduce the effects of stress, try adding HERBS and SPICES to dishes for an anti-inflammatory and flavor punch!
In 2023, the OCS Food Pantry served 2,276 households. In 2024, the Pantry has already exceeded that number. January through November 2024, over 2,500 households have been served.
Give the gift that keeps on giving! Consider including One Church Street in your estate plan. For example, you can leave a bequest to One Church Street in your will, or designate One Church Street as a beneficiary of a trust, or establish a charitable remainder trust, which would give you investment income for the rest of your life and then transfer to One Church Street. Your legacy would help Nourish Our Community for years to come – not only through our nutrition programs, but also our future plans for health education, the arts, and a host of other ideas we have to create a center for community, culture, and fellowship in the heart of Johnstown.
Vibrant colors abound this festive time of year. Why not bring the colors to your plate. Adding red, orange, yellow, green, blue/purple/black and tan/white/brown whole foods will both look good and make you FEEL better!
Winter officially begins today. Warm things up with this tangy recipe.
Loaded Sweet Potato
4 sweet potatoes
1lb ground beef/turkey
1/3 cup walnut pieces
1/4 cup bbq sauce
1/3 cup shredded cheese
1 scallion, chopped
Steam or cook sweet potatoes whole, then cut mostly half but keep intact at bottom. Cook meat and stir in walnut pieces, then add bbq sauce. Add 1/4 bbq meat mixture to each sweet potato, top with shredded cheese and chopped scallion. Serve warm. (Serves 4)
The NOAH Meal, a free community meal that has been served in the basement of St. John’s Episcopal Church for over 33 years, will become fully accessible to all once the second floor of One Church Street is open. NOAH hasn’t missed a Sunday, even during the pandemic. That is pretty extraordinary. We can’t wait for this to become the reality and can help serve even more of our neighbors. But we need to reach our fundraising goal to complete the space. Today, the day of the NOAH Free Community Meal, we challenge our community members to donate $33 in honor of the 33 years of the program. 100 people = $3300 but imagine what $33,000 could do.
If donating by check, please make them out to One Church Street with “Giving Countdown” in the memo line.
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
Food insecurity means that you don’t know where your next meal is coming from. Fulton County’s food insecurity rate is 25%, the highest in the Capital Region. Your donations move us closer to being the home of 3 programs working to help those who are food insecure: OCS Food Pantry, NOAH Free Community Meal, and Food is Medicine.
Tomorrow brings the start of two holidays, and the day after a third begins. To make today as easy on ourselves as possible, consider having soup for a meal. Soup is one of the easiest ways to pack your meal with nutrient-dense foods: lean proteins, canned beans, lentils, frozen or fresh vegetables, and herbs and spices (be sure to add more vegetables, herbs and spices than a recipe calls for even more nutrient density). Plus a big bowl of soup will make you feel full and less likely to overeat.
Boxing Day is often celebrated on December 26. Originating in Britain, it was a day to donate gifts to those in need. Though the origin theories vary, they all boil down to giving to those who need it most. We’ve almost reached the end of the Giving Countdown to 1 and still need your help to reach our $100,000 goal by Jan. 1. Consider adopting Boxing Day as a new tradition and donate to OCS to help our neighbors in need.
Though a Buddha Bowl gets its name from the piled high food resembling Buddha’s belly, this meal won’t give you said belly. It is a typically vegetarian meal, served on a single bowl consisting of small portions of several foods, served cold. They are a great way to use up whatever you have left over from the holidays.
Clean out the Pantry Buddha Bowl
1/4 cup any type of lentil or bean
1 handful mixed greens/kale/arugula
Any veggies of choice, cooked or raw
Plant-based or animal protein of choice
Sliced avocado
1 tbsp hummus
Sprinkle of sunflower or pumpkin seeds
Tahini dressing: Combine 1/4 cup tahini, 1 tbsp lemon juice, garlic powder, salt, pepper to flavor and whisk in water in small amounts until desired thickness is achieved.
Place all components in a large bowl, then drizzle with tahini dressing and a drizzle of olive oil.
Cinnamon is great at regulating blood sugar. It’s an effortless way to cheer up many meals! Sprinkle some on sweet potatoes, in Greek yogurt or oatmeal.
With just three days left to reach our goal of $100,000, here is a video from January of this year giving a great overview of the future home of the fully accessible NOAH meal program. Visualize all the possibilities with us! Then make a pledge or donation today to ensure those possibilities become realities.
The Food is Medicine program is creating ways to educate both Food Pantry and NOAH guests about the benefits of good nutrition in an effort to improve their health and quality of life. Currently, info cards are placed on NOAH tables and the OCS Food Pantry will have a slide show starting soon in the waiting area. Research shows that cooking classes are essential to the success of programs like these. Plans for the commercial kitchen include overhead cameras, as well as plenty of room to share helpful and healthful cooking instruction with members of the community.
Today is the final day of our Giving Countdown to 1 Challenge to raise $100,000. With 25% of our neighbors struggling with food insecurity, any help you can give us will get us closer to creating a fully accessible dining room for our NOAH guests, as well as a commercial kitchen to host our Food is Medicine program. Don’t miss this final opportunity to make a meaningful difference – give by midnight on December 31 to receive a 2024 tax deduction and help launch a promising 2025 for the miracle on Church Street!
One Church Street 