43
Second Harvest food bank sends truck of food to Oklahoma
Photo
Iberis
By LEE MURRAY
YOUNGSTOWN
Forklifts at Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley loaded 40 pallets of snacks and drinks onto a truck as part of a relief effort to help feed people affected by the tornado in Oklahoma.
“The reason we’re doing this is because it’s the right thing to do,” Mike Iberis, food bank executive director, said Tuesday, describing the local part of a nationwide effort.
“It’s to help people who have been devastated,” he added.
The truck is due to arrive in Oklahoma on Thursday bearing 180,000 pounds of food.
The request for aid came last week from Matt Knott, Feeding America’s chief operating officer, specifically requesting hand-held snacks and ready-to-eat foods. The food bank had enough food available to fill the truck.
“We’re sending out 35 pallets of Ritz Snack Mix and five pallets of energy drink,” Iberis said. “They were a donation from Nabisco, and we still had some left. We are fortunate to have an abundant amount of this product on hand that we were able to share.”
Iberis said this truckload of food would not hamper Second Harvest’s normal efforts to provide food to those who need it locally, and they can continue to feed people in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties as usual.
“What we are giving will soon be replaced by national donors,” Iberis said. “We have over a million pounds of food in our warehouse right now, and we have approximately about that much on an ongoing basis. It’s coming in and going out every day.”
This is the largest out-of-state contribution the local food bank has been involved with in a decade. The last time Second Harvest did something of this magnitude, Iberis said, was to help in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, 2001.
Donations are possible online at www.feedingamerica.org or by texting “FOOD” or “TORNADO” to 32333 to donate $10 to the regional food bank of Oklahoma.