The Greater Boston Food Bank

Tony, Renee, and I attended the Greater Boston Food Bank's open house event yesterday morning. It was quite a moving experience to be able to see the enormity of their new distribution center and to pair that with the fact that there are so many people in need of food. It was, as one of the volunteers that day said, "... good that we can do this [build such a large facility], but sad that we have to."

"How did you hear about this place?" Renee asked me, "How do you hear about things like this [the open house event]?"

And this is where I tried to explain to her one of the beauties of this magical thing called Twitter. (Okay, so it's not so magical, but ...) About a month ago, I saw a retweet (RT) from one of the people that I follow where the GBFB had a donor that would give them $5 for each new follower they could attract by a certain day. So naturally, I started following them and retweeted (is that even a legit word??!) so that the 97 people following me could do the same. And so on and so on ... such an easy way to raise funds.

And then I had an idea for a fundraiser: I tweeted that if I (under the ShortcakeScraps ID) could reach 200 followers, Tony and I would donate $200 to GBFB. After a couple of days and lots of retweeting on my and GBFB's part, we reached 200+ followers. Then as a GBFB follower after that, I found out about the open house event through their tweets and thought it would be the perfect way to hand-deliver our donation.

I did not take this photo (although I wish I could've!) - it is posted here.

Another great thing about Twitter is how I've met or connected with some people that I may not have ordinarily been able to (this will get a whole post dedicated to the topic soon). When we showed up to the building, Caitlin - the woman behind the tweets - was looking out for me to greet us and formally meet. We had been tweeting back and forth for a couple of weeks and it was so nice to be able to actually meet her in person. (Note: these are the times when my husband thinks I'm a local celebrity - lol!)

The open house was great! They coordinated a well-marked path for us to follow and we learned about so many aspects of the food bank. One of the most breathtaking parts of our visit was seeing the size and vastness of their storage shelves. It looked like Costco times a hundred.

We also spent some time in the food sorting area where volunteers help package up boxes according to specific groups (i.e. juice, cereals, etc.). We spoke with the volunteer coordinator about how people can stop by and help with the sorting, and she said that various groups around Boston (including Harvard) have already committed to volunteering until next spring. Nick Lachey also helped out here in October!

It was quite a scene in the sorting area and it looked like a lot of hard work. Tony and Renee were joking about how each person had two categories to look out for and fill boxes with, but that I could probably take on six. (A sign of how much of an over-achiever I can be?!) Here's a little video of the conveyor belt and that day's volunteers (if you can't see it below, click on the link here):



We also got to see inside the refrigerators on the premises which were enormous. The one that (there were three) really blew us away (no pun intended!) was the freezer chamber that houses things like meat. It was ginormous and so cold inside that you could make snow!

It was also great to see the GBFB's CEO, Catherine D'Amato, out and about the entire time we were there, mingling with visitors and answering questions. We also met Gail at the end of our tour, the woman that drives around to the every town in Eastern Massachusetts to check on things. She, and the other people we met throughout the day, really made us laugh and made me say, "I think she really loves her job."

We left feeling very happy that we had picked a great charity to donate to, and glad that we could see where our money was going to in the end. We are going to have a food drive in our office to help the Harvard students' drive to reach 1,000 non-perishable items, which will also benefit the GBFB.

I hope that all of you reading this post will also consider donating something - even if it's just one can! - to your local food bank. Due to the recession, local food pantries and women's shelters are desperately low on supplies that support their clientele, especially as we enter the colder months. By bringing in just one item each week, you will make a difference.

To see more pictures from that day, click here.

engagement photo shoot ~ sabrina & sean

I got to do my first engagement photo shoot last Saturday with Stephanie's sister, Sabrina, and her fiancee, Sean. They were in town from Maryland for the weekend and were kind enough to let me practice my photography skills for a couple of hours. Aren't they a cute couple?! They were super sweet to work with and in the end, extremely patient with me as both camera batteries decided to die (note to self: next time bring a hundred backups!), and tolerated the cold temperatures when I asked them to take their coats off.

We started off at the Public Garden in Boston. I love this shot of them mostly because of how Sabrina is laughing at something that he said. The drooping tree limbs and leaves are so pretty in the background.


Then we moved over to Commonwealth Avenue. I have to admit, I wanted to shoot this shot simply because I loved Sabrina's purple heels!

They wanted to go for more of an urban feel so we went over to the South End and took a few shots on the steps of a brownstone, and then in the middle of the street.

This was one of the last shots of the day, and it turned out to be one of my favorite (isn't it funny how that happens?). By this time we were all exhausted from walking around and of course, the cold didn't help. Luckily we had dimsum at Myers & Chang to look forward to afterwards, too!

It was great having Stephanie along as an assistant. She took some photos of us during the day, so it was interesting to see that perspective. This one cracked me up because you can see the little black step stool that I brought along to make me seem more "normal" height. LOL

You can see more photos from the shoot here. All feedback welcome. Interested in doing a photo shoot? Email me at candice [at!] shortcakescraps.com. :)

sweetness

It's so nice to come back from a three-day-weekend to a surprise on my desk. (Trust me, it really is!) Did I tell you how lucky I am sometimes to have such sweet coworkers? Really really.

As if the concept of a surprise wasn't enough, look at the beautiful wrapping job that she did, especially with two seashells attached to the ribbon! Seriously, too awesome.

But then the cookies. The cookies! Scrumptious! Ginger cookies. Mmmmmmmm ...

Sooooo good. Laura, you really do spoil me. Thank you. :)

P-town

A couple of months ago, Groupon offered a deal where you could get tickets on the Boston Harbor Cruises' fast ferry to Provincetown. Since neither of us had ever been to P-town in the 10+ years of living in Boston (yeah, I know, quite sad and there's a list of things we still haven't done in Massachusetts yet) I got us two roundtrip tickets.

For those of you who don't know how Groupon works, you basically buy into the daily deal and if a certain number of people buy into it (for example, 50 people) then it goes through and everyone can enjoy the discount. In this case, they sent me an email confirmation with the instructions to reserve our spots on the ferry but it also said that the Groupon was good until October 31st. So we originally thought we would try to go today (Monday, 10/12) since we both had the day off. Luckily I thought to call ahead to make that reservation and came to find out that their last run to P-town was yesterday (Sunday, 10/11)! So that kind of put a damper in our plans and we opted to go on Saturday instead.

It turned out to be a beautiful day - probably one of the last nice ones we'll get this fall! - and it turned out to be a great day trip for us. Unfortunately (and so unlike me, really ...) I didn't do much research ahead of time or planned an itinerary (read: trying this whole laid back approach to vacationing ... yeah, not really working for me ...) so by the time we learned about the trolley tour it was a little too late and too risky for us to do because we could've missed the ferry back to Boston.

This was one of the photos we took of Boston as we departed.

P-town, for non Mass folks, is at the extreme tip of Cape Cod and is known for its beaches, harbor, artists, tourist industry, and its reputation as a gay village. The main street, Commercial Street, is where pretty much all the action is and it's line with restaurants and shops galore. We saw some really cute houses, lots of art and sculptures, and a ton of dogs.

We had a late lunch at a nice restaurant called Ross' Grill that we sort of accidentally found in the back of a shopping center. We were so glad we found it because they had excellent food, a great atmosphere, was right next to the water, and was reasonably priced. Tony had a fish sandwich which was a great portion, and I had a really big Caesar salad with blackened shrimp on top.

Afterwards, we stopped off at the Portuguese Bakery because I had spotted a fresh batch of Malasada - Portuguese donuts! - in the window earlier that day. We picked up one donut and a chocolate eclair for the ferry ride back to Boston. And as you can see here, it was quite a pastry and larger than my face. I'm so embarrassed to say that I devoured the whole thing down to the last sugar crystal. Yum yum.

Anyway, it was a great day trip and a nice way of seeing that part of the Cape without having to sit in 3+ hours of driving and weekend traffic. Come to find out that while we were there, Tom Cruise and his family (Katie Holmes and daughter Suri) were here in Cambridge taking a break from filming his new movie.

(photo by Kate Mitchell and is posted here)

Massachusetts is becoming the new Hollywood! Rumor has it that Justin Timberlake will be in Somerville next week filming at a bar about 3 blocks from our apartment. Too cool.

Oh and you can see more pics from our trip here. Hope those of you who had today off had a nice long weekend!

Greater Boston Food Bank

Sometimes you just feel like giving, you know what I mean? So in an effort to do something good for others, I'm trying to get 200 followers to follow me on Twitter. And once I reach my goal, Tony and I will donate $200 to the Greater Boston Food Bank.

The Greater Boston Food Bank distributes approximately 30 million pounds of food and grocery products to nearly 600 member hunger-relief agencies throughout eastern Massachusetts in a dedicated partnership to end hunger in our region.

The $200 donation will provide 414 meals - wouldn't it feel good to know that you were part of that effort by simply following me (@shortcakescraps) on Twitter? Yes folks, it's that simple. :)

The Yawkey Distribution Center of the GBFB will be holding an open house event on Saturday, October 24th from 10 am to 2 pm where you can tour their new facility.

Thank you all in advance for your support!