OV FO Foodbank Hosts 1st Annual Spring Food Drive
Mar 10, 2023 12:00AM ● By Just Serve News Release
The Orangevale Fair Oaks Food Bank will stock up the community shelves on March 18 during its 1st Annual Spring Food Drive. Photo courtesy of Just Serve
SACRAMENTO REGION, CA (MPG) - Following the successful pattern of the Fall Community Food Drive, volunteers are again rallying community support to fill the Orangevale Fair Oaks Food Bank shelves on March 18 as their stores begin to run thin.
The food bank invites you to participate in the 1st Annual Spring Community Food Drive, run as a drive-through drop-off in front of the Orangevale Fair Oaks Food Bank (6483 Main Ave in Orangevale) on Saturday, March 18th from 9:00 a.m. until noon. Cars can line up along Main Ave facing the foodbank, and volunteers will unload vehicles.
“Last year, the fall drive couldn’t have come even a week later, and this spring drive feels the same,” said Andrea Scollay, OV FO Foodbank Director, as she described the increasing food insecurity and need in our community.
For the past two years, the Fall Community Food Drive has stocked the foodbank shelves until spring, but come spring, the shelves fall short. This year in 2023, even earlier. But, there is hope. When the communities that support the OVFO Foodbank show up, they show up strong.
“It has been unbelievable,” says Jose Zambrano, OV FO Food bank community outreach volunteer, of the fall drives growth since it started three years ago, “to go from one Church, to five churches, now ten plus…wow! But that is only one part of the Community…we have schools, sports teams, clubs, scouts, businesses. This event is an example of a community coming together full of love and compassion. Like our foodbank motto, ‘Neighbors Helping Neighbors’.”
Inspired by the work done in the fall, volunteers hope to create the same thing annually in the spring. They invite community churches and organizations not involved in the fall to partner in the spring. Filling the gap until the drive in October could keep the food bank full year round. Already accepting that invitation are Oak Avenue Church, Pathways Fellowship , Citrus Heights Seventh Day Adventist and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Hosting a one-day drop-off drive has become a great model for the OV FO Foodbank. Volunteers come together at one time and one place. “It takes what was once done over the course of a month by volunteers going out to grocery stores every weekend and condensed it into a one-day drive,” says Scollay.
If there is a model for community success, the Orangevale Fair Oaks Community Food Drive may have found it. When a community member sees a need, as Marcus Arnold did when he began spearheading a fall food drive in 2020, and is willing to step forth and gather others around it, great things happen. Talents, resources and the good vibes of serving together are shared, and grow. Often many see the same need, but it takes the rallying voice.
The Spring Community Drive-through Food Drive is an invitation to join that rallying voice.
“Thank you doesn’t feel like a strong enough statement,” says Scollay. “We are so truly grateful for the way the community comes together to help those that are in need.”
Want to join in?
Swing by the OV FO Food bank on March 18 between 9am and 12 noon, with food or cash donations; Share the news. Invite your neighbors together to fill your trunk with a neighborhoods worth of food donations before you come; Or, sign up to volunteer to help unload, sort and stock the donations on March 18, either from 8:30am – 11am or 10:30am -1pm. Sign up at JustServe.org, searching for “Spring Food Drive – Orangevale Fair Oaks Food Bank”.
