When we last left Crunch and the Produce Pals they were on their way to Central Pennsylvania Food Bank’s Healthy Food Hubs. Getting food from the farm to the table requires the help of a team of volunteers, donors, and employees! By donating to the Food Bank, you join the team helping Crunch, and other food into the homes of more than 400,000 central Pennsylvanians each year!
After being picked up at a farm, manufacturer, or retailer, Crunch and the Pals need a cool place to rest before they are delivered to the Food Bank’s nearly 1,100 program partner agencies.
Along with our main Healthy Food Hubs in Harrisburg and Williamsport, we have an off-site location that stores shelf-stable food and hosts our volunteer department. All together our facilities are roughly the same size as two and a half professional football fields. To maximize every square inch, we use racking and stacking to store products up to thirty feet high- imagine grabbing something off that top shelf!
The Healthy Food Hubs contain 5 industrial coolers and freezers that chill at a frigid -5 degrees Fahrenheit! One of those industrial deep freezers highlights the partnership between the Food Bank and Giant called “Meat the Needs” (see what we did there?)! To date thousands of pounds of fresh meat have been rescued through this program. This program has saved literally tons of high-quality protein from being thrown in landfills!
Teamwork is essential to the success of the Food Bank. Ensuring our neighbors facing hunger receive the highest quality, wholesome foods is an undertaking that requires many to give of their time, talent and treasure.
On the next stop in the journey, Crunch will roll over to our packing center where we will meet the volunteers who help Crunch and the Produce pals along on the next phase of their journey from farm to table. Thank you for being a part of the team! We can’t wait to see where Crunch goes next.
