Filling A Food Pantry – Filling Stomachs

This time of year always makes people want to donate to food pantries. There’s something about the season of giving that is about way more than giving gifts. But at Western Pest Services, it’s a little different. Yes, the team collected and donated to the Food Bank of Delaware for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday – making a giant impact in the process – but that’s not the whole story.

With even more people in the community relying on their local food pantries, donating right now is even more important. During the holidays, people tend to think it’s especially important to support food pantries. Everyone should have what they need to make the season bright for their family. Western Pest Services decided to get involved.

A local company decided to take care of the turkeys. So, spearheaded by Director of Sales, Billie Carberry, the team put the word out to fill the pantry with non-perishable essentials that are usually on a Thanksgiving table. Yams, green beans, boxed mashed potatoes, the quintessential cranberry sauce, and of course, apple pie filling were all among the items requested. All the things we may take for granted were accounted for. Through their efforts, the team collected and donated a remarkable 827 pounds of food! Maria Dodd, Commercial Account Executive, and Steve Colacrai, Wilmington Service Manager, were lucky enough to be the ones to drop it all off to the food pantry.

We spoke with Maria about drop off. She noted that she was “having a regular old bad day when she went to drop off the food.” Everyone has bad days, right? But dropping off the donations, brightened up her day exponentially. The Food Bank of Delaware representatives that met with them for the drop off, Barry and Larry, just kept thanking them for their donations. Maria and Steve even saw some people come up and get some of the food right then. Maria said it was “humbling and put a regular old bad day in perspective.”

The amount of donations caught the ear of Channel 3 News who came out to speak to them during drop-off. They interviewed them – and even the people from the news thanked them. But this is just what Western does! Even Maria said, “I didn’t want them to thank us! This is what we do. We take care of people, and we don’t need or want to be thanked for it.”

Maria and Steve talked with the people from the food pantry and realized – they don’t just give out food. They also collect donations for personal hygiene items, coats, blankets, and anything that could help the people in Wilmington and the surrounding communities. They made plans to help them out again next year. Just like they did this past June.

Because hunger and helping people in need is a year-round problem. So, Western Pest Services makes sure to help all year long. While most think of charity and food pantries around the holidays, Western Pest Services makes sure to think of it every month of the year. That’s just one of the reasons they are truly remarkable: they make an impact on their communities, all year round.