Manna’s Food Drive

In the last year, Manna served over 36,000 Montgomery County residents facing food insecurity. It is impossible to imagine distributing food to the children, seniors, and families of our community without the 32,000 volunteers (last year alone!) fostering Manna’s mission alongside our staff. Even on evenings, weekends and holidays, these gracious individuals donated 64,626 hours to serving their neighbors. This weekend is yet another chance for our volunteers to shine. Saturday is Montgomery County’s Community Service Day, and for the third consecutive year, Manna food drives will be held at every Giant grocery store in Montgomery County. Come visit our volunteers from 11am-5pm at any of Giant’s 27 local branches to drop off food to help Manna stock our shelves for the winter months.

One of the ways Manna tries to best serve our low-income neighbors is by promoting healthy and nutritious foods. You might pass by low-salt and low-sugar items thinking these are only necessary for those with health concerns. Not only can everyone benefit from low-salt, high fiber foods, but more than half of those we serve are growing children. Processed convenience foods can be very high in sodium, especially dangerous for a child’s bones, kidneys and blood pressure. Read the nutrition fact label for sodium amounts, especially when purchasing canned soups and vegetables. You might have to scan the shelves for the No Salt Added label! Consider donating plain instant oats, natural peanut butters, fruits packed in juice, dried beans, brown rice, and other suggestions from our wish list.

About Lindsey Seegers

Lindsey Seegers is the Program Manager of Nutrition Education at Manna Food Center. Her background is in Social Work and Nutrition; her passion is cooking food always delicious and nutritious. She teaches cooking and nutrition classes, and leads grocery store tours around Montgomery County about affordable and do-able healthy cooking. Since 1983, Manna has been feeding Montgomery County’s food insecure residents. In our 30 years of service Manna has served nearly 3 million people, 668,527 households, and distributed 45 million pounds of food. As the designated food bank for Montgomery County we are the main resource people turn to when they find themselves in need of food assistance. Manna delivers emergency food assistance through its three main programs: Food for Families, Smart Sacks, and Agency Food Distribution.

View all posts by Lindsey Seegers