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Thursday Evening, September 18
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You will probably remember that we volunteer at Blessings of Hope – Leola, PA, Warehouse – a time or two a month to help process food that has been donated for a variety of reasons.
When we saw that they were having a banquet at Shady Maple, we ordered tickets because we were interested in learning more about the ministry.
Following a delicious meal there were a variety of speakers. I found Aaron Fisher to be very interesting because he told about his vision for food distribution and how Blessings of Hope started.
He told about growing up in a fairly poor family and remembering how people brought them boxes of food. He thinks the vision may have begun when he was a young boy.
Blessings of Hope began in a three-car garage when he had no idea of how to find food for people who needed food or how to distribute it.
I didn’t remember some of the details he mentioned, so went to their website:
Blessings of Hope began as a response to the food waste problem in America.
Cofounder Aaron Fisher, who had a lightbulb moment in 2006, realized that charitable food agencies were turning down “all or nothing” truckloads of excess food products because they didn’t have the space to store it all.
(I remember this from the days we served with Transport for Christ because drivers often came to the chapels to ask where there was a food bank. Maybe because one skid on the load had a broken bottle of juice that had leaked over other bottles. For that reason, the receiver would not take the load. We encouraged each chaplain to know where there were foodbanks in their area and post phone numbers on their chapel. Doris)
This led to the idea of a big warehouse to store and distribute surplus food. The organization moved into its own warehouse and began packing food to distribute in 2009.
Blessings of Hope’s first semi-truckload of food was shipped to a Native American reservation in Minnesota in 2011.
Since then, the organization has distributed 244 million pounds of food, valued at over 406 million dollars, and relies heavily on donations and volunteers to continue its mission.
From the banquet brochure:
Blessings of Hope is a nonprofit organization committed to addressing today’s global food crisis through dedicated food distribution efforts. Large corporations can efficiently donate food through Blessings of Hope to give back to the community and people in need.
Our ability to process and distribute the equivalent of 2 million meals each month empowers regional ministries, churches, disaster relief organizations, and food banks to serve their local communities by feeding the hungry and sharing the love of Jesus.
I found the food waste in our country to be incredibly upsetting.
We were blessed to be at the banquet, meet friends and learn more about this very needed ministry.
Their dream is to be able to do this in many more states and cities across our country.