My husband volunteers at Second Harvest,and I have become involved, also. The backpack for kids program is awesome! I am a nurse, and what a wonderful way to "pay it forward"!
I volunteer with a local Christian Radio Station that takes donations at events for Second Harvest, I also volunteer AT a local Pantry that gives out the donated food. There have been events I have worked to collect cans from the public, driven my fathers truck to pick up for the pantry and packed boxes for folks whom come in. The Lord has blessed me to give, collect, distribute and even receive. Second Harvest of Gray GREATLY impacts our area in the TriCities and beyond. In 3 hours today we served 31 families of 114 people at our local Pantry. Carrying their boxes to their cars I ask how they heard about the Pantry and how they are doing. Times are hard and good people are hurting. Recently I made the trip to Sneedville with Second Harvest after the WCQR Thanksgiving Project where we raised funds for a food box and we delivered over 200 boxes into a hurting town. To see the folks at Gray work to fill every box was amazing. God bless you Second Harvest and EVERYONE who donates.
I am a youth minister and I took a group of teens from my church to volunteer at Second Harvest. It was a great way for them to see first-hand the need that exists in our community. They could not believe how much food was in the Second Harvest warehouse. It was very impressive to the students that all the food they saw stacked to the ceiling and all the food they were sorting that had been donated, was still not enough to meet the needs of the hungry in our community! The coordinator who worked with us gave good instructions to the teens and answered all our questions. It was an incredibly positive experience and our youth learned so much about the world around them by working with Second Harvest. We will be back to help in the future!
Patty Ford with Second Harvest has helped open my eyes to the extraordinary things the food bank does. I have shared with my 8-year-old daughter about the backpack for kids program and what a blessing it is for so many children. Explaining it to her also made her cognizant of her own blessings. Since then she has helped a child at her school, who takes a backpack home, feel more comfortable and less embarrassed about his need.
My experience with Second Harvest Food Bank is both warm and sobering. They have a back pack progam for kids in school. They fill the backpacks with food and give them to kids on Fridays to hold them over for the weekend. This one child who participates in the program told us what they endure weekly. The child has to hide their food in there room from the parents. The child can only take the food out after the parents go to sleep. The reason for the child having to sneak and hide the food is they will take the food and sell it for drugs. If this doesn't touch your heart and show you how if it was not for Second Harvest this would be another hungry child.