About 25 people joined several hundred volunteers from elsewhere at the non-profit organization’s distribution center in Dan Morton Drive, Dallas. Volunteers spent two hours sorting and checking donated groceries including cereal, canned vegetables and fresh cucumbers.
“I always like to volunteer whenever I get the opportunity to,” said Beverly Hjorth of Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios from Boston, MA, U.S.A. “We have been sorting cereal into two boxes and stacking it on a palette.”
INTA voluntee Oluwayemisi Falaye (pictured, far right), of Nigerian firm Adepetun Caxton-Martins Agbor & Segun, was part of a group of volunteers sorting through cucumbers. “We’re throwing away the broken ones, and the ones that are bad, and then putting eight cucumbers in each bag,” she said.
“We can stretch one dollar into three meals, and we are very proud of that number,” said Karolyn Hemmig of the North Texas Food Bank. “Obviously, you can get a lot when you buy in bulk.”
The North Texas Food Bank distributes food to 13 counties in North Texas through a network of over 300 member agencies. Its work includes the Mobile Food Pantry program, which provides emergency food boxes containing enough food for two people to eat for four days, and the Food 4 Kids scheme, which provides backpacks full of nonperishable food to low-income elementary school children.