Last week's speaker was near and dear to our volunteering hearts! Dan Flowers of the Akron-Canton Foodbank. He has been President and CEO of that organization since 2003.  He began by thanking the club for its support, both with volunteers and financially.  He gave the history of the foodbank movement.  It began through the questioning of John Van Hengel in Phoenix, AZ when he was a guest at a soup kitchen.  He shared that he knew that a nearby business threw food away and he knew this because he got some of that food out of their dumpster.  He talked to that company about sharing the food with the soup kitchen.  They agreed and as he gradually moved to other companies with the same request and the movement was born.  Locally, Tom Allio of the Catholic Commission was responsible for the creation of our foodbank in 1980.

 

The Akron-Canton Foodbank is in the middle of a capital campaign, with a goal off $11,500,000.  They are already at $10,500,500.  That money will help expand the work in Akron and also establish a building in Canton which will offer a mixture of free food and local produce. Last year they supplied 500 soup kitchens and shelters with $38 million worth of food, serving 200,000 people.  The Akron building is 130,000 square feet and utilizes 12,000 volunteers in a year.

 

During the pandemic, they expected to be an emergency responder and already had disaster plans in place.  At the end of the second week, the National Guard was here to assist.  At that point the volunteers were put on hold because of the need for appropriate social distancing.  As schools and agencies closed, their work increased and staff has been pushed to the limit. The line for the food giveaways has tripled since the first week of the stay-at-home instructions and tomorrow they expect to serve people in 2000 cars with food. They are now in a position to slowly welcome volunteers back, but it will probably be August before the volunteer aspect is fully operational again. Thank you Dan for talking to us!!

 

J.T. Stimler was in charge of our joke of the week today.  His joke involved a very tense situation....ask him about it. Laughter ensued!!

 

Adopt-A-Spot:  (My apologies that this was not included last week.)

Marty Tass thanked the following people for their help in planting the Adopt-A-Spot garden at the corner of 91 and Graham Rd by the Doughboy.  Rotarians who helped Chairperson Marty Tass were:  Mary Dula, John Long, Carrie Leising, John Pribonic, and Dave Renninger.  Also, if you have a spare 20 minutes once in a while, stop by and weed.

 

- Club Survey:  Thank you to everyone who filled it out!!!

 

- Virtual Convention  To find information about attending the Rotary International Convention virtually, check out the information in Carrie's "This Week in Rotary" which she sent yesterday.  In that same e-mail you can check out how to participate in today's 3:00 district zoom call.