'Satisfying in Its Difficulties'
Grocery stores, politicians, nonprofits, and everyday citizens gathered Saturday to distribute enough food for 51,000 meals holiday meals to nearly 500 families.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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What does it take to provide nearly 500 families with food for the holidays?
“Collaboration,” said Jackie Farell, who manages Feed America’s corporate relationships with Giant Foods and Food Lion.
For the fifth consecutive year, the food bank has orchestrated a massive give-away of turkeys, fresh fruits and vegetables, shelf-stable foods, cereals, and more to the growing number of families who are daily struggling to put food on the table.
“It’s an honor to see all these companies that normally compete coming together for one cause.”
Local grocery stores play a significant role in the annual event.
“We donate food every day to the Food Bank,” King George Food Line store manager Mike Perry told the Advance. “Today is a natural extension,” he continued, of his company’s “love of giving back.”
Food Lion boxed 1,500 boxes of shelf-stable foods for the event and donated 800 boxes of cereals. Food Lion employees from all over Virginia came to assist.
Weis Markets is another local grocer that has a regular partnership with the Food Bank, but as with Food Lion’s employees, today is particularly special for Weis’ team members who came to help distribute food on Saturday.
“A lot of our donations hit microcosms of communities,” said Joe Sassano who’s the district manager for Weiss and responsible for Southern Maryland and all of Virginia. “This is the most impactful event that we participate in,” he said, in terms of the cross-section of the community who are served.
Weiss has been involved with the annual holiday food giveaway from the very beginning.
Volunteer work like this, he said, “gives us a purpose beyond selling groceries. [Giving back to the community] is in our DNA. We talk about this all year long.”
Another local grocer who made Saturday’s event possible was Giant Foods, which contributed the turkeys for the event.
“The volunteers are the [people who] make this happen,” Paul Couvill told the Advance. A member of the Food Bank’s Board of Trustees, Couvill and fellow Board member Adam Eidson were on site helping to distribute the turkeys and waters.
The “demand for our services is increasing,” Couvill said, “but our funding level has not increased at the same level as the demand.”
Local volunteers not only showed up to help distribute, but put in hours prior to Saturday to make the event possible.
Food Bank CEO Dan Maher said that it took 20 people working about 40 hours “to pack the produce that Publix delivered on Thursday” so that it could be easily distributed.
The bags included a range of vegetables from cucumbers and potatoes to rutabagas and onions and corn.
Fredericksburg Mayor Kerry Devine and Stafford County Board of Supervisors’ member Pamela Yeung were on-hand to distribute the vegetables.
Devine, who has worked the event for three consecutive years, told the Advance that the “need is growing and we know that it’s greater. It’s heartwarming to see the outpouring of the community, but humbling to see the need.”
Food Bank Board member Keith Wampler was also on hand. He’s involved, he told the Advance, because he’s “always been involved in community, and it’s hard to think of a better program in this community.”
Sarah Frederick and Heidi Dodson concur. Frederick runs a nonprofit that distributes clothing and hygiene products. Only six months old, the program has already distributed 1,380 families — that number grew by nearly 500 on Saturday, as Fredericksburg and Dodson distributed packs with toothbrushes and a range of related products to families. It’s all about giving back, Frederick told the Advance.
One of the people who make the Food Bank go all year long is Brandon Jones.
When the Advance first met him last August, Jones was coordinator for the Order Ahead Program. Today he spends his time as the Federal Commodities & Reporting Coordinator.
On Saturday morning, however, he was outdoors in the cold with all the volunteers and Food Bank team distributing turkeys and holiday products.
“The whole team pulls together” every year, he said. The work is challenging, he said, but the work is “satisfying in its difficulties. It reminds me why I got into nonprofit work.”
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