The Biggest District 5790 Food Drive Ever to take place at the All-Clubs Conference

Posted by Dan Morales 
on May 30, 2016
 
This year our District Governor, Troy Secord encouraged our clubs and Rotarians to hold a community service project at the All Clubs Conference.  The catch was: how could we involve our youth clubs? What to do, what to do? In the wake of a weak moment, I volunteered.  I wasn’t worried, I knew Rotaractors, Interactors, Youth Exchange, and Rotarians would have my back. The only thing left was to decide what to do?
 
 
Over several anxious weeks of no sleep, it finally came to me – a big food drive to benefit people in need.  Everyday people in our areas go hungry. This was a way to bring home the need and to directly affect peoples’ lives.  The idea was to provide complete meals – canned meat, starch items, canned vegetables and canned fruit.  We even added other items in the packages including breakfast bars, snack bars, peanut butter, crackers, and juice.
 
It was an amazing day with Rotarians, Rotaractors and Interactors who had donated food.  We had Rotaractors from UT Arlington, Interactors from Sam Houston, Martin, and Trinity high schools helping assemble the food packages. I think we had over twenty youth exchange students; at some point I lost count. We even had Rotarians on board, and yes we needed all of them.  It was truly organized chaos!
 
After all was complete, we had over 800 meal packages ready.  It took eight SUV’s to deliver the food.  Most of us were able to deliver to Mission Arlington that morning. The youth members were thrilled that they had been able to complete the project from the beginning to the end.  It was very impactful to work together and actually see the people who would benefit.
 
Thanks to all the Rotarians, Interactors, Rotaractors, and Youth Exchange students for being a gift to the world.