What Our Harvest Recipients Have to Say
Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida – Mission: To Fight Hunger in Central Florida
“We deeply appreciate the collaborative spirit and “can do’” attitude of FDC’s team. They are a strong partner in alleviating hunger and at the same time reducing so much waste. Their partnership is especially appreciated because our most recent Hunger Study showed that we are serving more people than ever in our history; a 152% increase since a couple of years ago. We cannot do this work alone.”
-Dave Krepcho, President & CEO, Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida
City Harvest – Serving New York City for 25 Years
Yum Brands helps City Harvest feed some of the more than one million New Yorkers who turn to emergency food programs each year. City Harvest has ensured that the nearly 200,000 pounds of food and counting donated by KFC and Pizza Hut since the beginning of our partnership has reached the people who need it most."
-Jennifer McLean, Chief Operating Officer, City Harvest
We are grateful for the partnership we have bridged with the Food Donation Connection (FDC). Through the efforts of FDC, we are being connected to participating food venues to provide additional nutritional resources for our East Side Cafe. Last year [2015] we served 41,551 meals to homeless men, women and children. We serve meals three times a day Monday through Saturday and twice on Sunday all year around and having access to the variety of meals donated by the venues makes a monumental impact on the number of guests we can serve. Thank you for assisting us in providing food to the hungry.
-Marilyn Farmer, Executive Director, Morning Star Mission Ministries, Inc. Joliet, Illinois, USA Caring and Sharing the Love of Christ
Smoky Mountain Area Rescue Ministries – Serving the Smoky Mountain Area
The Smoky Mountain Area Rescue Ministries is blessed to have several Darden restaurants providing food for our "Hot Meals for Hungry Hearts". The restaurants that participate in the Harvest Program allow local agencies to use excess prepared food, or un-served meals to feed the less fortunate. SMARM is a local Ministry in the Sevier County area that serves people in need. Currently, we are serving an evening meal at three different locations weekly. Thousands of meals are served each year to families, who have stated many times that "this has been our best meal each week". On their behalf, please accept our thanks and appreciation for being recipients of your excess food to serve those in need.”
-Dick Wellons, Director, Smoky Mountain Area Rescue Ministries
Island Harvest Mission: To end hunger and reduce food waste on Long Island, NY
Island Harvest has been a part of the Harvest Program, for many years. The food procured from this program has provided over 600,000 meals... Many don’t realize that on Long Island we have approx 259,000 Nassau/Suffolk County residents or nearly 10% of the population who seek emergency food assistance every year. This includes 93,000 children and 39,000 seniors. We have 450+ soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, residences, Head Start Programs, senior centers and other programs that we service. The food provided each week allows us to service many members especially those don’t have a cooking facility readily accessible. The prepared foods allows them to have a good and healthy meal – all they need to do is pop it in the Microwave. We have an after school program in Brentwood that has about 65 children who participate in the program who anxiously wait for the Chicken or Pizza we provide them to be given out because it’s the only meal they will get as “Dinner”. The Harvest program is an integral part of our organization and we could not provide the service we do without caring, informed programs such as yours. On behalf of all of us at Island Harvest, thank you for your concern, commitment and willingness to help your neighbors in need.“
-Migdalia Otero, Vice President of Operations, Island Harvest
San Diego Rescue Mission – Serving San Diego, California
We began our prepared food donation recovery program called, “Partners for Hunger Relief” in 1997 and Pizza Hut was the first restaurant to donate to our organization. Prior to that, we only picked up bread and pastries from a few grocery stores. Since we had so many people to feed at the San Diego Rescue Mission, we began to seek more restaurants and caterers to donate their excess food because the prepared foods were of greater value and much more nutritious than the bread and pastries. In 1999, we began picking up food from most of the Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants in San Diego. The donations of pizza from Pizza Hut and chicken wings, rice, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and macaroni &cheese from KFC have increased the nutritional value of the food we had available and the men, women and children that receive these meals have been so grateful to have more variety in the weekly menus. We collect enough of the Pizza Hut and KFC items to serve three meals a week! And we serve 500 people at each meal. That is 1500 free meals that would otherwise be thrown away if these restaurants didn’t donate to our organization. We are able to help other agencies with feeding programs when we collect over the amount we need to serve three meals a week. For variations, we make sweet & sour chicken by pouring canned fruit cocktail, garlic, onions and bell pepper chunks, brown sugar and soy sauce over the KFC chicken wings, bake and serve over rice. If we have a lot of mashed potatoes we make shepherds pie, or doctor the potatoes up with sour cream, green onions and almost any kind of cheese for a potato casserole. Our clients love the food because they feel they are getting to eat at a restaurant, and who doesn’t love Pizza Hut and KFC? The savings on provisions has been tremendous and allowed us to grow and help more people over the years. This has been a wonderful partnership and we are truly grateful."
-Stephanie Paine, Director of Food Service, San Diego Rescue Mission
Pacific Garden Mission – Serving the Greater Chicago Area
Over the past 5 ½ years that I have been a member of the Pacific Garden Missions Transportation Department, both on the Program and a Staff Member, I have seen a great growth between FDC and PGM, when I started we only had a few Kentucky Fried Chickens , Pizza Huts and a couple of Long John Silver’s. Over the past 4 years we have acquired Red Lobster, Longhorn Steakhouse, Capital Grille, The Olive Garden, Cheesecake Factory, Starbucks Coffee, Rock Bottom Cafe, Grand Lux Café and Trader Joe’s. During this period we have spoken to and met a lot of great people working both for FDC and the donors to help the needy in the Chicago area. I hope that in the future we will be able to grow together and be able to reach out and help even more people.”
-Patrick Doolan, Transportation Department, Chicago, Pacific Garden Mission