Harvest Hope receives cool contribution

Photo by Samantha Lyles

Photo by Samantha Lyles

By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net

Harvest Hope Food Bank of the Pee Dee got a big helping hand last week when Perdue Farms donated a 50-foot refrigerated trailer for the storage and transportation of perishable foods.

“This is a tremendous donation for us,” said Denise Holland, CEO of Harvest Hope Food Bank. “We are providing more than 27 million meals annually, and this (trailer) means 1.4 million meals going into the Pee Dee. 57-percent of everything that we handle is perishable, so being able to keep this food at the right temperature for pick ups and deliveries is very important.”
Holland was joined at the presentation by Randy Brown, director of operations at Perdue’s Dillon facility, and Perdue area HR director Efrem Andrews.

“We at Perdue have partnered with Harvest Hope in a multitude of ways – we volunteer and assist in food giveouts… and we hope this trailer will provide adequate storage for food going back and forth to the community,” said Brown.
Holland added that donations like this are a big boost in Harvest Hope’s mission to end hunger in South Carolina, where one in five people suffers from inadequate food.

Harvest Hope branch manager Michael Murphy noted that since 2002, Perdue has donated about 1.8 million pounds of food to Harvest Hope, and that equates to 1.4 million meals. He added that these donations are particularly vital since Perdue poultry provides a necessary source of dietary protein – something often lacking in the non-perishable donations food banks receive.

Harvest Hope’s Pee Dee branch serves several local counties, including Chesterfield, Clarendon, Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Lee, Marlboro and Marion. For more information please visit www.harvesthope.org.

Author: Jana Pye

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