Manna Relies on You!

We’ve shared a lot of information over the past week on what life is like for our clients; they rely on SNAP benefits and the work of organizations like Manna for healthy food for their families. So, you’re wondering, if Manna and other organizations provide healthy food to people through your donations, what kind of donations should you bring? We’ve got the answer for you! We’ve posted a healthy food drive wish list on our website, and when you email fooddrive@mannafood.org you get a copy of the list, as well as information on how to hold your own food drive.

Manna relies on community food drives to help us collect the over 4 million pounds of food we distribute each year. Your donation goes to support Food for Families, where every family receives 70 pounds of food; the Karen Goldberg Smart Sacks Program, where kids in 54 elementary schools receive weekend bags full of healthy food; and our Food for Agencies which supports smaller pantries and soup kitchens in Montgomery County. We distribute an average of 19,000 pounds of food a day!

 
 

Manna has been working to distribute fresh produce to our clients in our Farm to Food Bank program. The best way to support our fresh, local food initiative is to donate funds. You can contribute online or by mail, and we’ll use your donation to purchase food from local farms, orchards, and farmers’ markets. We work with Red Wiggler Farm, Kingsbury Orchards, One Acre Farm, Button Farm, and more to collect fresh produce throughout the year. We are partnering this year with Farm to Freezer to help us keep the organic produce in client boxes throughout the year by freezing some of summers’ fresh bounty.

Kids from across Montgomery County are instrumental in our ability to hand out food! From Norwood School to Bullis School, kids have held food drives for Manna. Kids in MCPS often volunteer with us for our Help the Hungry Food Drives in January, July, and October.

Manna also relies on the volunteer time of our neighbors to sort, pack, and distribute all this wonderful food. Last year, we relied on over 52,000 hours of volunteerism to support our small staff of full-time workers. Without their help, we would never have been able to feed over 184,000 people! You can learn how to volunteer on our website or sign up for our newsletter and hear about all the great things Manna has been doing for the past 30 years in Montgomery County.

Thank you to everyone who makes Manna so great: our volunteers, community groups, funders, board members and staff. We’ll be celebrating our 30th birthday this year, so consider your donation to Manna a birthday present for thousands of families in Montgomery County!