The Honey Brook Food Pantry (HBFP) recently announced the results of its March Madness fundraiser, a friendly competition that pits local companies against each other to see which one can donate the most food and money to the pantry. The event coincides with the NCAA March Madness Tournament.
The Honeybrook Golf Club/Greenside Grill was this year's winner. It defeated Knies Insurance at the end of the competition. Other companies that were close to the win included the Wright Agency; NovaCare Rehabilitation, which won last year's event; and Truist Bank.
Collectively, the companies donated more than $3,800 and 1,400 pounds of food. Donations will go to providing supplemental food for elementary-age students in the Twin Valley School District as part of the backpack program.
"Children from Twin Valley Elementary Center and the Honey Brook Elementary Center benefit from the program," noted Robert Hamm, brand marketing manager for RV Industries, which also participated in the competition. "Backpacks (filled with food) are sent home with children for the weekend. No children will have food insecurities that weekend."
This year, 15 teams competed by donating money during the three-week event, complete with brackets in keeping with the tournament theme. The donations were averaged by the number of employees in the company, which was used to calculate the company's score. "Once a week, we took everyone's donations and weighed them and we calculated their cash contribution," Hamm explained.
Hamm noted that employees are generally enthusiastic to donate goods to the pantry. "We don't want companies to write a check," he stated. "What it does is give them an opportunity they might not otherwise have to give back to the community."
"There are some companies that don't just want to give money," he added. "We found a lot of our employees are happy to bring in canned goods or nonperishables rather than just handing money over."
In addition to those already mentioned, other companies that participated in the event were Berry Global, Genesis Packaging Technologies, Hollywood Casino, M&T Bank, PhytogenX, R-V Industries, September Farm, Suburban Brewery Co., Turf Teq, The Wright Agency and Zook Molasses Company/Good Food.
The HBFP, located at the Good Food Distribution Center, 5064 Horseshoe Pike, Honey Brook, holds two distributions each month - on the second Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and on the fourth Wednesday from 4 to 6:30 p.m. The food is distributed in a drive-through format. HBFP provides 10,000 pounds of food a month to about 250 families, with the assistance of 80 volunteers.
For more information, visit www.honeybrookfoodpantry.org or http://www.facebook.com/honeybrookfoodpantry. For up-to-date information about food distributions, call 610-273-6102 or contact Ken Ross, HBFP director, at KRoss1414@aol.com.
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