Conejo Community Outreach is ready to start preparing for our second annual Conejo Community Thanksgiving, and once again, we're hoping the community will support us in providing Thanksgiving Day meal packages to local families in the Conejo Valley.

Many families in our community live paycheck-to-paycheck and purchasing the ingredients for a holiday meal can be a burden,  using a huge part of their monthly food budget.  Each Thanksgiving, we will be sourcing ingredient and monetary donations in order to provide several local families with the full ingredients to cook a complete meal for their families, in their own home.  

Holiday memories often center around a meal – the warmth coming from the oven as the smells mingle in the air, culminating in sitting as a family and enjoying the time together. We would like to provide that experience for as many families as we can, for whom it would ordinarily be out of reach or strain finances.

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN HELP:

1) Donate non-perishables, canned goods, and turkeys!  November 19-21, 2016 will be our designated food drop-off weekend. For those who would like to donate non-perishable items and canned goods, this is the weekend to be aware of. We will have host locations in your city that you may drop of your donations to. These host locations will be updated on our Conejo Community Thanksgiving page as we secure them.

2) Donate a monetary contribution to help us with our supplemental market run. Last year due to monetary donations we were able to buy ingredients in bulk to save on costs, and fill in ingredients that weren't donated for each meal package. A $50 donation covers an entire food package for one family.

3) Nominate a family. Please email us at [email protected] with the size of the family, location of family, name of the head of the household, and a phone number and/or email address the family can be reached at. We will respond to each request and do our best to accommodate based on donations received.

4) VOLUNTEER! We will need volunteers for a variety of event related needs. Volunteer as a host for your city, where people can drop off food donations, volunteer to help us on organize and put together meal packages on the evening of November 23rd, or volunteer to help with meal package distribution on November 24th! Email us at volunteer@conejocommunityoutreach to express your interest in volunteering, and we will be in touch to discuss further details.

We thank the community for helping us to make our second annual Conejo Community Thanksgiving a success!

CCO President Andrea has created a week meal plan complete with dinner recipes, and lunch and breakfast considerations. This meal plan is portioned to accommodate a family of four. The prices are good at Sprouts through Wednesday!  We hope you enjoy!

Please CLICK HERE to download the PDF of the shopping list, broken down by item, price, & meal genre & recipes!

CCO is pleased to announce that we have a few events coming up this fall that we would love for you to be a part of! We are still in the process of finishing touches and details before we release flyers, but we just couldn't wait a second longer to share!

It's officially the first day of summer, and the longest day of the year with 17 hours of sunlight! By now you've noticed our temperatures in SoCal are soaring! In fact, this a collage of our social media newsfeeds today and we bet yours looks the same. It can be hard to plan just what to do with your kiddos on these HOT summer days so stay with us after the jump for some suggestions that don't leave you resorting to standing in front of your freezer (not that we'd judge!)

We all know a neighbor, a friend, or a family member who has fallen on hard times financially for a variety of reasons. It might even be you. With a fluctuating economy and an over-saturated job market of potential employees, providing for a family often means living paycheck to paycheck, these days.

As we're a board of seven local moms, we've noticed a common theme in posts throughout the mom groups we are a part of collectively. Many of our fellow parents and friends don't know where or how to go about applying for government aid or resources that may make all the difference in their quality of life. It can be overwhelming to know where to start, so we've researched a few programs that everyone should 1) know about, and 2) know how to go about applying for. Below you'll find links and resources for programs ranging from Food Stamps to Child Care assistance.

As we begin 2016, we’re reflecting back on how grateful we are for the generosity the community has shown regarding the launch of our Non-Profit, Conejo Community Outreach.

Our flagship event, Conejo Community Thanksgiving, which will be an annual event, provided 15 local families with Thanksgiving Day meals, thanks to amazing local sponsors who donated raffle prizes, and community residents who provided their volunteer efforts, food, drop-off locations, and monetary donations.