April 28, 2026
Related to the last newsletter regarding bike safety, Supervisor Herrity reported an accident in his neighborhood of a child on a bicycle being struck by a vehicle. The child was taken to the hospital. For parents – please stress the importance of wearing a helmet and to ride responsibly. For everyone – please drive with caution to anticipate what might be around the next curve and hill.
1 – ECHO News
2 – Free Shredding event June 27 9am-noon with Crime Solvers
3 – First mention of the Community Yard Sale in May
4 – Second mention of the Annual Meeting on May 14
5 – Calendar
1 – From the latest ECHO newsletter:
Dear Members and Friends of ECHO,
The Letter Carriers’ Food Drive, "Stamp Out Hunger” is vitally important to ECHO. Food donations traditionally decrease during the summer months, but hunger doesn’t take a break. ECHO depends on the Stamp Out Hunger drive to help us get through the summer months. Please share the news items below with your organization.
Also, though this newsletter is meant for May and June, if you have time to publish a Shred/Food Collection event on April 25, please do so. Here are the details:
There will be a Community Shred and Food Drive benefitting ECHO on Saturday, April 25, from noon until 2:00 pm at Rolling Forest Pool, 7011 Flax Street, Springfield. Bring your documents to be shredded for free and please bring a donation of non-perishable foods or personal hygiene supplies for ECHO’s Food Pantry. The most-needed items this month are dried beans, spaghetti sauce, canned fruit, facial tissue and toilet tissue.
Gratefully,
Jane Curtis
Outreach Chair
Join the Letter Carriers to Stamp Out Hunger
On Saturday, May 9, the Letter Carriers of the US Postal Service will collect non-perishable food for the hungry in thousands of communities across the country, making “Stamp Out Hunger” the largest one-day food drive in the US. Local Post Offices near ECHO will be collecting for ECHO’s Food Pantry and you can participate. Leave a bag of non-perishable foods and personal hygiene items by your mailbox before mail delivery on May 9. Your letter carrier will collect it at the time of delivery.
The importance of this annual drive to ECHO cannot be overemphasized. Schools and organizations often take a break from organizing food drives during the summer. Many regular ECHO donors go on vacation. Food donations drop, but hunger does not, so keeping our Food Pantry stocked in summer is a challenge. We count on the generosity of local postal patrons as well as the hard work of the letter carriers to keep doing our mission of combatting hunger in our community.
Volunteer Opportunities
ECHO is fortunate to be a place where volunteers join, enjoy their work and their co-workers, and often stay for a long time- some for decades! We therefore often have limited volunteer openings. Currently we have a few morning slots for work with donations, and our evening slots are filled except that we need a few adults to help supervise the Teen Program on Wednesday evenings. A small group of community service-minded high schoolers volunteer on Wednesday evenings during the school year to help keep our donations organized. ECHO needs a few more adults to work with this great group of young people. The chair of the Teen Program will be happy to orient new volunteers.
Want more info about volunteering at ECHO? Contact our Volunteer Coordinator through our website at www.echo-inc.org/get-involved/volunteer-opportunities/.
Needed Now at ECHO
Spring arrived in the clothing room in mid-March when we made our changeover from fall and winter items to clothing for spring and summer. As you talk to friends and neighbors about making donations to ECHO, please ask them to hold onto their warm clothes for now and plan to donate after mid-August. We have limited space to store clothing for cold weather.
Clothing that is needed now includes short-sleeve t-shirts for men in small and medium sizes, shoes for men in sizes 7 and 8, and athletic shoes for children of all sizes. Donations of packaged underwear and socks for men and boys are always helpful as we only distribute NEW underwear and socks to our clients.
The Food Pantry’s most needed food and personal hygiene items currently are bagged beans (especially red, black and garbanzo), spaghetti sauce, instant coffee, green tea, canned fruit, shampoo, facial tissue, and toilet tissue.
ECHO is open to receive donations of household goods, clothing and non-perishable food from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm, Monday through Friday, and from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, as well as one Saturday morning a month which varies, but is noted on our website www.echo-inc.org. Receipts are cheerfully offered and volunteers are glad to help donors with boxes and bags. Look for the Donation Door sign on the west side of the building.
Upcoming Dates to Note
May 2 - Saturday Opening
May 6 - Exec Committee meets
May 9 - Letter Carriers Food Drive
May 18 - Bd of Dir Meet
May 25 - Closed for Memorial Day
June 6 - Saturday Opening
June 19 - Closed for Juneteenth holiday
Congregational and Other Food Drives
May - Grace Christian Reformed
June - St. Mark’s Lutheran, Westwood Baptist
For more information about ECHO on the following topics, please click any of the links below:
ECHO Food and Clothing Amazon Wish List
2 – On June 27, there will be a free shredding event at the Rolling Valley Park and Ride from 9am to noon. Donations will be accepted to support Crime Solvers.
3 – This is the first notice of the Annual Community Yard Sale. For those new to the Civic Association, individuals have a yard sale on their own property on the same day. It is usually a mix of stuff to sell and stuff to give away. I will look at the dates on the signs I have for which weekend it will be. As we lead up to it, I will ask for those interested in participating to let me now their address and a brief description of what they are selling.
4 – The Annual May meeting will be 5/14, 7:30PM, at the pavilion of the Village West Pool. There will be snacks and refreshments. The meeting discusses current events in the Civic Association and opens the floor for new things to talk about.
5 – Calendar
4/30 – Scam Jam event – 9am to 1pm, Fairfax County Government Center
5/9 – ECHO letter carriers food drive
5/14 – West Springfield Village Civic Association Annual Meeting, 7:30PM, Village West Pool