Community rallies to support food bank
Submitted
[NEWS RELEASE] The Superstition Community Food Bank is sending a big shout-out to its dedicated staff, volunteers, donors, local businesses, civic organizations, and first responders for helping it stay open and keep pace with demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Executive Director Myra Garcia says, “The caring, love, and support has come from all directions. We are definitely in this together.
“We had volunteers willing to brave the heat outside to check in our clients on a drive-through basis. We had the Apache Junction Police directing traffic. We had members of the National Guard helping us load food into cars. We had the help of Rosie Portugal-Brastad, Project Help, Mary Eckert, Charlene Hudson and Joan Ferguson, making dozens of masks for our volunteers to wear on their shifts.
And thank you to Walmart store 3751 in San Tan Valley, store 5257 in Mesa, and Sam’s Club store 6605 in Gilbert for awarding us grant funding of $6,000 during this time. We’re also very grateful to Brookdale Apache Junction for donating water for our food bank hydration station. Continuous donations of food and cash have saved all of our clients from going hungry.”
The food bank expects to return to its usual client service registration, operating days and hours by Monday, June 1, unless otherwise directed by the Governor’s office. The one exception will be the closure of food distribution service on Wednesdays, effective May 13th. Garcia notes that the Wednesday closure will continue until further notice due to excessive heat warnings for the summer months, coupled with the need for time to train replacements for those volunteers who have stepped back due to health-related concerns.
“We’re not through this yet,” says Garcia. “This summer will present a huge challenge to us. The Annual Postal Service Food Drive scheduled for May 9th has been canceled because of the virus. We rely on that food drive for 39,000 pounds of food to help feed the hungry during the summer months. That’s a huge shortfall of donations to make up, but I’m confident that the generosity of the community will continue. We ask everyone to help their neighbors who are at risk of hunger by donating today at superstitionfoodbank.org/donate. Thousands of people depend on us.”
