Dozens of boxes are filled with donated food each day at the CHOW warehouse in Binghamton and delivered to local residents in need. CHOW stands for the Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse and is celebrating its 50th year since its founding in 1976. The food bank helps to supply food to 126 different emergency food programs throughout the Southern Tier. Chow director Les Aylesworth says a recent study finds that one out of every four Broome County residents report being food insecure.
“We need people doing stuff to make people’s lives better. We can’t just talk about it. There’s a place for that. There’s a place for advocate. There’s a place for, you know, protesting. But, you know, it doesn’t feature the person down the street.” said Aylesworth who says it’s the volunteers that help CHOW to function properly, and says last year, close to 80,000 volunteer hours had been given. “You can’t feed a person on words. So we want to be about the business of helping people get food.”
Aylesworth says that in addition to the warehouse CHOW last year, open the Greater Good grocery store on the north side of Binghamton to better address food insecurity in the area. Aylesworth says he’s honored to have an impact in the local community.