Soldiers from across Fort Hood, Texas provided support to the Central Texas Food for Families food drive on November, 16.
The one-day food drive collects non-perishable food and stocks the shelves of 20 area food banks and pantries across nine counties in Central Texas. The goal is to collect enough food to last past the holiday season.
The 13th Expeditionary Command provided vehicles and Soldiers to pick up food at collection points throughout the local area and deliver it to the central collection area at the Killeen Civic and Conference Center.
“The support we received from the Soldiers of the 13th Sustainment Command was truly outstanding,” said Dennis Duphey, director of the Killeen Food Care Center. “We are a nonprofit organization supporting the Killeen civilian and military community and do not have the resources to collect the amount of food at multiple locations that the 13th ESC was able to.”
Once the food arrived at the destination it was weighed and then local school children took the various items to different stations where more Soldiers including 80 from Bravo Co. 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division sorted and boxed them.
“We were looking for a way for our company to continue to build as a team while also giving back to the community,” said 1st Lt. Taylor VanValey, platoon leader with Bravo Co. “People always talk about the incredible Thanksgiving and Christmas meals they have with their families, but that isn’t the case for everyone, so we wanted to do something that involved giving food and meals to families during the holiday season.”
This is the 29th year for the event and it broke records. In total, over 2 million pounds of food was collected. At the Killeen location, Fort Hood Soldiers were responsible for helping to collect 317,066 pounds of food, which exceeded the Killeen Food Care Center’s goal of 250,000 according to Duphey.
According to VanValey, Bravo Co. plans on trying to fit more opportunities to help the community into their schedule. “I think the Soldiers had a lot of fun participating in this day and they also recognized what an incredible opportunity this was to give back to the community that supports us.”
Date Taken: | 11.19.2018 |
Date Posted: | 11.20.2018 08:33 |
Story ID: | 300631 |
Location: | TEXAS, US |
Web Views: | 54 |
Downloads: | 1 |
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