Freedom from Hunger food drive beats goal
Online effort raises more than $4,600
UPPERMERION » The Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board has once again surpassed its goal in collections for its annual Valley Forge Freedom from Hunger Food Drive.
This year’s event was a totally virtual effort — collecting monetary donations rather than collecting food items. The money collected is being used to purchase canned goods and other food.
This year a total of $4,658.77 was collected during the drive, which ran through the month of September. At a rate of .23 cents per pound, that’s the equivalent of 20,256 pounds of food. The goal for this year was to collect 15,000 pounds of food.
Since the drive began in 2015, the Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board has collected more than 45,000 pounds of food to feed the hungry in Montgomery County.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you! We seriously can’t say enough how grateful we are to Montgomery County folks,” Mike Bowman, president & CEO of the Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board, said in a press release. “This annual commitment to our community is so important. Our neighbors need us now more than ever. We can’t let this virus stop us. We must rally, and work together to fight COVID, and hunger.”
The agency partnered again this year with the MontCo AntiHunger Network (MAHN), a coalition of hunger relief organizations working together to keep families stable with food assistance. MAHN provides resources to food pantries that feed more than 15,000 households a year, and serve the more than 80,000 people who are food insecure in the county.
“Dollars generated from this year’s Valley Forge Freedom from Hunger campaign will support MAHN’s COVID 19 response work,” Paula Schafer, MAHN executive director, said in the release. “Thousands of Montco families are struggling to stay stable right now. Our goal is to channel as many resources to them as we can through our food pantry network. The visibility we get from Freedom from Hunger will equip us with more dollars and tools to do that.”
According to MontCo AntiHunger Network officials, so far this year, 73% of 34 member food pantries have seen an increase in volume — in some cases double or triple — especially when nonessential businesses were shut
down.
Recognizing the increased demand, the Valley Forge Convention and Tourism Board said the hunger drive doesn’t end with these results.
The organization will keep the Valley Forge Freedom from Hunger Food Drive donation link open through the end of the year to help those struggling through the holidays. It will continue to push information out on social media platforms.
The donation link had been open since the pandemic hit Montgomery County in the spring resulting in the closure of schools and businesses. Prior to September’s push, the drive had raised almost $2,000, which translated to more than 7,000 pounds of food. September’s effort collected another nearly $3,000, translating to more than 13,000 additional pounds
“This annual commitment to our community is so important. Our neighbors need us now more than ever. We can’t let this virus stop us. We must rally, and work together to fight COVID, and hunger.” — Mike Bowman, president & CEO of the Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board
of food.
Some of the MontCo AntiHunger Network’s COVID-19 response work includes direct to pantry delivery of 56,710 pounds of COVID-19-prompted food donations, dollars for wholesale food purchases, and operating equipment needed by food pantries to keep up with demand, and stopgap distribution assistance to pantries temporarily closed for virus remediation, Schafer added.
The Freedom from Hunger Food Drive was established in 2015 as a farewell pledge to Pope Francis, who stayed in Montgomery County at the St. Charles Borromeo Seminary during the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.
To donate, visit www.valleyforge.org/hunger.