BINGHAMTON (WBNG) — Four tons of food rolled up to the Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse Wednesday morning. All of it was collected by the Columbian Financial Group and its employees to feed the hungry.
CHOW gives thousands of people food each month through its 95 food pantries and soup kitchens scattered throughout the community. Last year, it distributed 1.8 million meals.
A large part of that wouldn’t be possible without Columbian Financial’s annual food drive. The drive started back in 2010, and this year has been the most successful year yet.
Of course, a little competition never hurts. Employees created teams and competed for bragging rights by seeing which one could collect the most food.
“Our folks actually go out and do the shopping. So, they collect money so that they can go off and ravenously hit any sale, anywhere in the Twin Tiers area. And I do mean anywhere,” said Vice Chairman of Columbian Financial Group Patrick Mannion.
That determination to help the community has led to some serious collections. Over 22 tons of food has been collected by Columbian Financial in nine years. It’s something the company is very proud of.
“That’s our goal. Is to help the community and make sure that we can do what we can do in order to make the place a better place,” said Mannion.
The folks at CHOW are certainly thankful for the support and hope to get even more people in the community involved.
“We need to partner and, you know, maintain these relationships so we can continue to feed those people and meet that need,” said CHOW Program Director Jack Seman.
No doubt Wednesday’s donation helped make a dent in that need. CHOW encourages you or anyone you know who is interested in running a food drive to contact them.
You can send the organization a message on Facebook, reach out online at broomecouncil.net/CHOW or call (607) 724-9130.
To see the full article, go to: http://www.wbng.com/story/38676807/chow-receives-massive-food-donation-from-local-company