ALEXANDRIA, VA—The Trinity United Methodist Church hosted its third food drive for local food shelters. A semi-truck carrying 40,000 pounds of food from Salt Lake City arrived in the church parking lot at 10am on the morning of Thursday, June 24th.
The food drives have all been hosted by Trinity United Methodist Church, and have all been organized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Amy Barker, JustServe Specialist of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said, “A lot of times we take this food to other countries, but during covid we’ve been taking it throughout the united states.”
The 40,000 pounds of food were forklifted off the truck, and divided and distributed between 5 different local food banks: Casa Chirilagua, Grace Episcopal Church, Our Lady Queen of Peace Roman Catholic Church, Rising Hope Mission Church, several Arlington Schools, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The hero of a forklift driver, Geoff Nichols, who drove all the way from Fredericksburg at 5:30 in the morning, unloaded numerous of palettes from the semi-truck.
Mary Gillman, Mission Team Lead of Trinity United Methodist Church, stated, “Geoff is our life saver. He was willing to take off work and come help us and be our forklift driver. He left at 5:30 this morning from Fredericksburg. I don’t know what we would’ve done without a forklift driver. It is an incredible debt of gratitude.”
Volunteers gathered around to help organize and distribute the food to the 5 shelters. The group of volunteers was composed of neighborhood families, local residents, and missionaries from across the country with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
One volunteer, Shannon Doyle, said, “I like volunteering at food banks. I saw this online in a group I am part of in Alexandria and I didn’t know about it so I clicked and signed up. And I’ll come back and do it again, for sure.”
Trinity United Methodist Church Pastor Grace Han, who has been present at all three food drives, concluded, “We are happy we are able to host this and find a partnership. It is wonderful that we can work across faith communities. Part of our call, of everyone’s call, is to help hungry people. We look forward to future partnerships.”
Each 20-ton food drive has been incredibly successful. So be on the look-out for future opportunities to volunteer.
