Helping the Hungry
June 28, 2014 – Small Business Growth Alliance (SBGA) Volunteers at Orange County Food Bank to Assemble Food Packages for Struggling Families
In a world where hunger and malnutrition are an everyday reality to many countries, it’s shocking to realize that there are people going without food in our own backyard. Hidden in the cities and towns of the nation’s wealthiest areas are thousands who struggle to put food on the table; The Orange County Food Bank, in conjunction with the Community Action Partnership of Orange County, works to ensure that their plates are not empty.
“On average we send out 26,000 boxes filled with food each month,” the head coordinator of Orange County Food Bank volunteer events explained. “But the thing to remember today is that these boxes aren’t just freebies. This is the motivation that brings these people – grandmas, aunts, uncles, and little brothers and sisters – the strength they need to keep going; to try for self-sufficiency and a better quality of life.”
This weekend, over 100 volunteers from the Small Business Growth Alliance (SBGA) gave up their Saturday morning to assemble food donation packages at the Orange County Food Bank. Given careful orders of how the box-packing system should work, team members of SBGA each took on important roles from building boxes and shuffling them down the line to managing food groups and taping the final product shut. Split into two teams, volunteers raced to fill their boxes and give the most back to the community.
“It was amazing to see so many people not only come together in the name of helping others, but do it so enthusiastically!” the spokesperson of SBGA’s Volunteer Leadership Committee said. “One employee brought her eight-year-old son to help who said he now wants to volunteer at the Food Bank every Saturday.”
At the end of the day, both teams together managed to pack over 1,700 boxes filled with the necessary food items to keep many Orange County families eating healthily for another week. Team members of SBGA emerged from the Food Bank warehouse exhausted and sweaty, but with smiles on their faces and excitement brewing for the next volunteer opportunity.
“The competition is always fun,” one SBGA volunteer shared, “but at the end of the day, the best part is knowing that in these past few hours, we’ve helped hundreds of people.”
Packing boxes at the Orange County Food Bank is an annual event that SBGA invests volunteer power into each year. Company leaders and volunteers look forward to returning with greater force and double the output in 2015.