Bravo Company 237th BSB participated in a charity food drive on this 16th day of December 2009 to assist families who are down on their luck. The following five Soldiers volunteered to lend a hand at the event:
SSG Miller, SGT Piper, SPC Fischer, SPC Hartle, and SSG Perez from the 838th MP Company.
The event was made possible by the United Auto Workers (UAW) L 1112. They have helped needy families for twenty-five years or more. Sam Swoger assists with UAW L 1112’s Veteran’s Committee. He contacted SSG Beckley and 1SG Thomas regarding the details of the event. Upon arrival at the distribution site Mr. Swoger showed us around the building and introduced us to some of the figure heads.
We met Glenn Johnson, the Vice-President of the Union and Karen Eusanio, who is the President of the Community Service Committee. Mr. Johnson and Ms. Eusanio were interviewed regarding what actually goes into the process of this huge event.
The preparation that is needed for this event is immense. The union members sell raffle tickets for items such as cornhole games and the new Nintendo Wii. A vast percentage of the overall proceeds that fund this event come from these raffles. They also collect private, local donations that range from a few dollars to even a thousand dollars per contributor.
The union, the Veteran’s Committee, and the Community Service Committee are also aided by several other important groups with the preparation for this event. The Women’s Committee, Education Committee and the Recreation Committee also provide a tremendous help. All together these groups and the private contributors raised $15,000. With this money they were able to create care packages for 300 families; which contained food items to help sustain each family for no less than a couple of weeks.
Within the preparation there is an application process where each applicant is assessed to prove the families needs. After all of the applications are collected and assessed they are categorized into levels of need. Once this exhausting process was finished they chose the top 300 applicants who would then be personally called and informed that they were accepted.
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Even still there is more preparation to be finished. Ms. Eusanio contacts different food distributers to find who will give them the best deal in terms of quantity and variety for the total of food purchased. This year the most supportive distributer was Rulli Brothers. Wess and Carla Pollock Trucking is another company which significantly helped. This company volunteered all of their own time and materials to load and unload all of the food purchased.
 Finally, when it came to the day of the event even more volunteers were needed to help with the distribution of the food. Some of the auto workers themselves, their families, Boy Scouts, retirees, and the National Guard helped in all ways possible.
The event started at 1000 hrs and continued just past 1500 hrs. Inside separate stations for each different food product made distribution less hectic. The food was packed by sliding the box from station to station until each different item was loaded. The volunteers helped register the families and then directed them to drive and park on the opposite side of the building to receive their care package.
While they drove around to park, other volunteers labeled their box, ensured it was properly packaged, loaded into a grocery cart with some additional items, transported outside, and loaded into the family’s vehicle. During the entire day only two families showed up who owned foreign made cars; every other vehicle that pulled in was American.
The union greatly appreciated our help and would enjoy our presence there again next year. Mr. Swoger would like a volunteer from Bravo Company to join the Veteran’s Committee to be the contact and voice for future events. Overall, it was a wonderful event that aided in feeding nearly 300 families who were down on their luck. |
