Hundreds of blue-shirted volunteers grooved to music at The Breakers in Palm Beach as they scooped, sealed and packaged tens of thousands of bags of dried pasta.
The volunteers, members of the resort’s staff, were joined by Palm Beach County Food Bank employees as they packaged meals as part of the Day of 100,000 meals collaborative initiative.
Held on May 27 in recognition of World Hunger Day, the event saw volunteers blow through their goals, with 146,808 meals packed for county residents suffering from hunger. According to the food bank, that was about 20,000 pounds of pasta.
“We are incredibly grateful for the continued partnership and support we receive from The Breakers,” Palm Beach County Food Bank CEO Jamie Kendall said in an announcement about the event. “Their volunteers are truly helping us make a meaningful impact in combating food insecurity in our community.”
In a ballroom at The Breakers, volunteers were organized into an assembly line. Some weighed out scoops of pasta before filling a bag with a precise portion and passing it to the sealers, who then handed the bag to the blue-shirted Breakers employees tasked with stuffing the food bank’s large cardboard boxes.
The event was the fifth meal-packing event co-sponsored by the organizations in three years. In the announcement, the food bank described the event as another example of corporate community engagement, noting that the one-day project would have a “life-changing, measurable impact for individuals and families” in the county who don’t know where they’ll find their next meal.
The hundreds of thousands of packaged meals were expected to be distributed to over 200 local community partners of the food bank and serve the roughly 192,000 county residents dealing with hunger.
Food bank officials have also highlighted that these events are especially valuable to the food bank, providing an influx of packaged meals the food bank itself couldn’t package in a day.
Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Breakers volunteers in Palm Beach pack meals for food bank
Reporting by Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News | USA TODAY Network
