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3.1 Million lbs. of Food Delivered! A report on the work of
the Community Food Trucks for the fiscal year July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009.
A ministry of Feed the Hungry at Village Baptist Church in partnership with CROS Ministries and the Community Food Alliance
With the worsening economy this past year, more and more people have had to ask for help feeding their families. There’s not enough money for all the bills and food, too.
Working with more than 120 local non-profits, the truck ministry was able to feed almost 117,000 individuals in about 34,000 families of all races and religions all across Palm Beach County.
Despite a February freeze that kept us out of the fields for several weeks, we collected about 720,000 lbs. of corn, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, egg plant, zucchini and melons and gave it all away to the needy.
CROS Ministries coordinated with several farmers to glean their fields and arranged for almost 1,200 volunteers over the growing season, who gathered almost 156,000 lbs. of nutritious produce that otherwise would have been plowed under.
Coordinated by Gale Martin and Jacquie Shorter, drivers such as Ron Regueiro colleted about 565,000 lbs. of produce that was donated by the pallet and the truckload by farmers and produce houses.
Gleaning started at about 9 a.m. on most Saturdays and by lunch CROS volunteers had filled a truck with food to be delivered that day to waiting agencies.
And, Jacquie led some weekday gleanings, especially at farms in western Boynton Beach.
Unfortunately, Gale’s cancer came back during the winter but Jacquie Shorter stepped in to keep the trucks rolling and the produce and other food coming in.
Our drivers also picked up frozen meat from 12 Publix stores on Wednesdays and Sundays. By the end of the year, 300,000+ lbs. were delivered to area soup kitchens.
We began a Food Rescue program in consort with Alex Stevens of the Community Food Alliance. Its mission is to save prepared, unused food from dumpsters at restaurants, hotels and events.
The first client Alex arranged was a Palm Beach Hotel. Then Alex got SunFest to give us food every night after the festivities had shut down.
So, for 5 nights, Jacquie and a crew of 8 met at SunFest at about 11 p.m. and quickly gathered unused food from 40+ vendors and from hospitality suites to be taken to homeless shelters and soup kitchens.
CROS arranged for us to recover food from a Palm Beach grocery store going out of business, and Alex got us into a country club closing for the summer to get canned goods and frozen meat.
Early in our new fiscal year, we have raised about half of the $200,000 we will need to maintain this ministry for the year ahead. Please pray that we reach 100%.
We hope you find this as uplifting as we do.
In Christ’s Love,
Dan & Jacquie Shorter
Dan -- 561-398-2828
Jacquie -- 561-398-0566
8306 155th Place North, PBG, FL 33418
