Apple Corps Ambassador, Misty Coolidge – #CrushingHunger Tour

North Carolina

The Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina distributes over one million pounds of food every week, serving nearly 600,000 food insecure people in 34 counties. 38% of the food they handle is fresh produce. Did you know that 60% of the sweet potatoes in the USA come from North Carolina? If they were to stop taking in food today, their food bank would be empty in 10 days! That’s how fast they distribute pallets of food into their communities.

Misty’s passion for #CrushingHunger is strong, and whenever she can, she brings a friend or family member to volunteer. While in North Carolina, her friend Heather joined in on a morning of volunteering to help bag sweet potatoes. Together the team of two bagged 14,400 pounds of sweet potatoes. This poundage equals almost 12,000 meals.

“When signing up for a volunteer shift, we were given the option of working inside or outside in their exterior garden, which I thought was pretty cool! I had an awesome time and I look forward to returning!” stated Misty.

Wisconsin

While visiting Milwaukee, Misty was supposed to volunteer at Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin, but due to the volunteer area being under construction, she found the nearest food pantry they support, Coggs Community Center, to the Friedens Community Ministries Food Pantry, where they operate the Hunger Task Force and hand out donated food and supplies directly to families in need.

Those in need come ‘shop’ their offerings by checking off items they want from a grocery list provided, and the volunteers pull everything off the shelves and out of the refrigerator. They can choose from fresh produce, hygiene items, socks, and lightbulbs. Items vary almost every day. While visiting, there was a food donation from Walmart. Misty helped haul in the boxes, sort food, break down boxes, and put things away.

Massachusetts

While in Massachusetts, Misty and her husband visited The Greater Boston Food Bank. They joined a small team of volunteers at their 117,000-square-foot warehouse. The task of the day was labeling (Nutritional labels) donated Demakes meat products for distribution to one of their 500 partner agencies in Eastern Massachusetts. Before the pandemic, they were distributing 70 million pounds of food annually. They’re now distributing over 120 million pounds of food.

During the first two hours of their shift, they labeled 4,524 pounds of meat, equaling 4,322 meals! That was completed with only five people!

“It’s amazing the impact a small group can make,” stated Misty.

They bagged and re-boxed oatmeal packets for family boxes in the last hour. Misty was so excited her husband joined her for his first food bank experience, and they worked alongside a gentleman named Adam, whose fiancé is a neuro nurse and has inspired him to give back as she does, and this was also his first shift. Of course, Misty encouraged a Maine destination wedding!

Georgia

While in Georgia, Misty visited the Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia Food Bank. She worked with a small crew packing 315 mobile food pantry boxes, equalling 580 meals! Each box included one grapefruit juice, two cans of apple sauce, two cans of apple sauce, two cans of tomato sauce, two boxes of spaghetti, two bags of lentils, two cans of peas and two bags of beans. They also have a kids cafe that prepares hot meals for children in the community.

Despite their size, they significantly impact the community by distributing 7.8 million pounds of food to 325 pantries in the coastal Georgia region. Their “Grace’s Kids Cafe Kitchen” provided more than 831,000 meals for children at 105 partner sites.

Philadelphia

Misty was on her way to New Orleans to volunteer when an impromptu shift in plans led her to Philabundance in Philadelphia. She spent the morning with a large group of volunteers packing Senior Boxes. The team of volunteers packed 520 boxes equaling 15,600 pounds of food.

After her shift, she met with the CEO, Loree Jones, and was given a wonderful tour of their facility. She shared her story with the volunteers and received a thoughtful swag bag.

In 2020 they distributed 55 million pounds of food, 324,000 pounds to youth programs, and 1.7 million pounds to seniors.

Some unique operations at their Food Bank that stood out to Misty were: On Fridays, they have ‘Good Pizza’ Friday, where they make and distribute pizzas to those in need in the community. They have school children come in and write ‘Notes of Sunshine’ in children and senior boxes to bring smiles and sunshine to brighten days. President Biden and First Lady Jill have visited twice, helped sort and pack food, and signed their wall. Misty noted that Philabundance was one of her favorite and most special visits.

Washington, D.C.

Misty’s next destination on her #crushinghunger tour was Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C., a 100,000-square-foot warehouse that touches the lives of 500,000 people per week. Pre-Covid, that number was 400,000 and increased to 600,000 people in need.

She volunteered with a large group of people from Andrew’s Airforce Base and made 1,030 family meal boxes, providing a family of four with food for three days. Each box includes whole milk, almond milk, instant potatoes, diced pears, tuna, peanut butter, chickpeas, cereal, biscuit mix, and granola bars.

During Covid, they distributed 14,000 of these boxes per week, now down to 7,500. They have 27 trucks that deliver to all their partner agencies.

Their ‘Food Plus Program’ provides special dietary boxes for seniors, doctors’ offices, diabetics, and expecting moms with specific diets. They offer recipe cards with affordable, family-friendly meals to give families ideas. Each card has the cost of each meal to work with their budgets.

They have ‘7 Way’ cards which offer seven ways to make each vegetable and how to cook it.

Connecticut

The second day of Misty’s three-state road trip was at Connecticut Foodshare.  What was once two separate food banks (Foodshare & Connecticut Food Bank) has become one with their recent merger.

On an early Thursday morning, four volunteers, including Misty, filled Emergency Family Food Boxes consisting of cereal, pasta, sauce, canned fruit and veggies, soup, peanut butter, a snack, and energy bars.

They packed two pallets consisting of 168 boxes and 2,688 pounds of food.

New Hampshire

The last stop on Misty’s three-state road trip was at the New Hampshire Food Bank.

“This stop was unlike any other.”

Misty and her friend Nikki spent the morning in their culinary kitchen processing carrots for a rice pilaf and cutting mushrooms for a massive batch of beef stroganoff. Their kitchen alone (aside from the food bank itself) prepares and cooks 5,000 meals per week that go out to the Boys & Girls Club, churches, soup kitchens, Meals on Wheels, and other programs. Together their volunteer team prepped, cooked, and packaged 30 pans which equals 600 meals!

Their food bank works with 400 partner agencies and annually distributes $12M meals to families in need.

Their biggest fundraiser of the year is their March Steel Chef competition, where four local head chefs compete for the title of Steel Chef. A Food Network chef comes as the guest chef host and oversees the competition. With over 700 attendees watching, including 250 VIPS, it’s a competition Misty plans to attend in March.

Michigan

Misty’s sweet sixteen food bank stop was at Forgotten Harvest in Oak Park, Michigan, with her sister Queen Ms.USA 2021: Sherlyn Fox.

Their huge volunteer crew was split into two. Their team went to the ‘re-packing’ room to bag donated Kellogg’s butter crisp crackers. Kellogg’s main manufacturing plant is in western Michigan, and they hugely support the fight against hunger. They donate huge bags of cereal and crackers that need to be rebagged and labeled, hence having a room designated for this task. Collectively they rebagged 1,029 pounds of crackers. That was 49 cases (about a pallet and a half). In total, Kellogg donated 15 pallets.

The other half of our volunteer crew packed Family Meal boxes, and together they filled 16 pallets with 960 boxes, equaling 19,200 pounds of food.

Ohio

Next on Misty’s tour was Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank with her sister Queen Mrs. Worldwide Heidi Scheer. Their volunteer task of the day was sorting frozen meat.

One of their most prominent food bank supporters is Costco, and they had several donated pallets of frozen meat to sort into ‘cooked,’ ‘uncooked,’ and ‘seafood’ boxes. Their small but mighty crew of three volunteers sorted 2,907 pounds of product.

After their shift, Jonathan (volunteer coordinator) gave  a tour of the facility and shared information on the food bank programs. With Michigan and Ohio being giant manufacturing states, most of their donations come from Campbell’s, Heinz, Kellogg’s, and about $3M annually from Amazon.com. They have two Harvest Market trucks that travel into food insecure areas, and they serve food from the truck, which has an awning, shelving, and stairs that people can enter and shop. They also partner with DoorDash to deliver their Senior Boxes to those that can’t get out to the food bank in person.

The Toledo Food Bank serves eight counties and 212 agencies.

Arizona

While in Arizona, Misty volunteered at St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, packing shopping carts of food that would be loaded directly into cars at their distribution center. Our assembly line included non-perishable boxes, frozen meat, dairy, desserts, water, watermelons, salads, chips, Pepsi, and bread. Cars lined up around the block for six hours. They pulled up, no qualifying or questions, trunks popped, volunteers loaded, and they were off.

Collectively we loaded 875 cars, distributing 61,250 pounds of food. The other half of our volunteer crew packed 936 emergency food boxes of non-perishables, equating to 1,124 pounds of food.

St. Mary’s was the first food bank in the country founded by John Val Hengel in 1967, dubbed the ‘Robin Hood of Food,’ who later went on to found Feeding America!

Other fun stats that Misty liked about this food bank:

• They have three huge buildings: their Distribution Center, Warehouse, and Community Kitchen & Market.
• The community kitchen works with at-risk individuals, moms, etc., giving them kitchen skills, and cooking lessons and placing them in restaurants around the city. Their ‘Lift Program’ works with those that want to learn warehouse skills, and those individuals get jobs at warehouses such as Amazon.
• They distribute 300,000 meals per day.
• They have mobile distribution units that travel to communities and hand out food from their truck to those that can’t make it to the food bank.
• Their warehouse rotates stock every three months! So if they didn’t take in any food, their shelves would be empty in that timeframe.
• Their Senior Boxes go to those who qualify and make less than $1,500 per month.
• They pack 17,000-25,000 emergency food boxes per week!
• They partner with 900 agencies.
• They crafted special ‘Tribal Boxes’ that go to their local Navajo Region; families with no stores to shop at or refrigerators to keep things cold, so they met and designed boxes to fit their needs.

Virgina

Misty’s 19th state was crossed off her list when she visited Feed More in Virginia. It was her first time portioning meals in a culinary kitchen for Meals on Wheels. Her team portioned and sealed chicken stroganoff with barley and spaghetti with collard greens, equalling 1,600 meals for those in need.

“The crew was amazing, and we had such a great time, including some ‘I love Lucy’ moments when the meals were flying out of the sealing machine so fast we could barely keep up!”

Feed More serves 34 counties and partners with 260 agencies. The Botanical Gardens in their city grows veggies and donates 100% to the food bank. Programs include Meals on Wheels, Backpacks for Kids, mobile food pantries, school markets, and more. Last year they distributed over 25 Million meals to those in need, which equuals to 40 Million pounds of food!

Vermont

Misty had the pleasure of volunteering at the Upper Valley Haven Community Center. They are a partner agency to the Vermont Foodbank, which means they’re supplied with food from the food bank that goes directly into the hands of those in need. Since she often seeks out volunteer opportunities at warehouses, she doesn’t typically get to see firsthand good that partner agencies do, and she thought this one was extraordinary!

Upper Haven serves people experiencing poverty, need shelter, helps with education, coordinates services to combat problems individuals/families are facing, provides emergency services, grows and supplies food, and so on. I was blown away by all they do for their neighbors in need.

“Market Shop” is where Misty volunteered, placing grocery orders for families who stopped in looking to fill/supplement their families’ food needs. The Haven provides USDA shelf-stable food combined with donated fresh produce, bread, meats, etc. They stop by, fill out a grocery list, and wait in their car while volunteers shop for them with grocery carts around their market. This program provides food for 70-80 households / 150-300 people daily. 

What a place! Misty was in awe of the great work done at this fantastic facility.

Tennessee 

Misty’s next stop on her #crushinghunger Tour was in September 2022 at 

Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee!

With Hurricane Ian impacting so many families, the need for disaster relief volunteers was vital. She spent her first volunteer shift packing Disaster Relief Food Boxes shipped to families in need in Florida. Collectively they packed 840 boxes, equaling ten pallets. They spent the last hour packing Backpack Program bags. Fufilling 938 bags and 134 boxes. The food bank sends out 8,000 bags per week. 

Feeding America has five warehouses like this one throughout Tennessee. This one serves 46 counties!

Illinois 

Misty’s 22nd state was Illinois! In November, she visited Feeding America’s corporate offices and volunteered at the Greater Chicago Food Depository. While there, she worked with a great team bagging apples donated by a Michigan orchard. They packed 343 cases, equaling 13,034 pounds, and 10,861 meals in only two hours. She was blown away by the impact in such a short period. These apples went out the following day to their agency partners.

This was the only food bank she had visited so far that served only one county. This food depository distributes over 75 million meals yearly, increasing since the pandemic.

Indiana

Misty’s volunteer shift was at the Food Bank of Northern Indiana.

She worked with a high school volunteer named Grace, and they bagged food for their ‘Food for Kids’ program that provides meals for the weekends when there may be little at home to eat (distributing 2,500 meals per week).

The food bank serves six counties with 125 partner agencies and distributes almost 9 million pounds of food annually. Misty really liked their ‘Stamp Out Hunger’ program, where they mail 100,000 folded plastic grocery bags stapled to postcards to homes each May. The postal carriers and volunteers pick up the bags left by mailboxes. It’s their biggest food drive of the year.

Washington 

On a spontaneous trip to Seattle, Washington, Misty volunteered at Food Lifeline.

With a group of volunteers, they sorted 4,000 pounds of dairy. Food Lifeline’s warehouse distributes food to 17 counties and partners with 350 hunger-relief organizations.

Oregon

Right from Seattle, Misty traveled to Portland, Oregon. The Oregon Food Bank was closed for staff training, so she went to a partner food pantry, the Luther Memorial Church, where she inspected and bagged 50 pound bags of radishes and apples.

Misty met and worked with Jon and Karen, who manages the organized Emergency Foodhouse where families come and shop. “It’s truly a fantastic operation serving hundreds of families weekly. It was an honor to meet them and witness their great work!” stated Misty.