The Rural Outreach Center (ROC), an East Aurora-based nonprofit organization dedicated to ending rural poverty in southern Erie County and surrounding areas and assisting, empowering and elevating individuals to self-sufficiency, assisted numerous local families throughout the holiday season.

“The Rural Outreach Center invited 51 families and over 90 children to receive donated gifts for Christmas,” said ROC Executive Director Frank Cerny. “Families were selected primarily on their work in setting and working toward personal goals toward self-sufficiency as this is part of the ROC’s model of assisting, empowering and elevating participants.”

More than 70 individuals and organizations helped make this happen by purchasing thousands of dollars in gifts, gift cards and non-food items for distribution. “The community response was overwhelming,” Cerny added.

Jamestown, NY – The American Red Cross is hosting a blood drive at Audubon Community Nature Center.

At “A Pound for a Pint,” you can combine giving with receiving on Tuesday, December 27, 2016, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

For every pint donated, the Red Cross will provide a pound of Conewango Blend birdseed that the donor can choose either to take home or to donate to Audubon’s feeders.

Conewango Blend is a mix of birdseed especially formulated by the Nature Center’s own experts to attract a wide array of birds to your feeders.

After filling local needs first, the American Red Cross has the ability, through the national inventory system, to move blood around the country to wherever and whenever it is needed most.

There is a critical need for all blood types at this time. Please give the gift of life!

Jamestown, NY – “It takes a lot of willing folks to present the exciting experience of Winter Lights,” said Audubon Community Nature Center Volunteer Coordinator Katie Finch. “We couldn’t make it happen without the dedication of many volunteers.”

With a thanks to those who are already on board, including some through RSVP, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, Finch is putting out a call for more help for the eights nights of Winter Lights from December 16 through January 7.

A collaboration between Audubon staff and Volt Vision in Warren, Pennsylvania, Winter Lights is an exhibition with 14 lasers and more than 10,000 LED lights along a luminary-lit trail.