Unique Partnership Stretches Food Bank Dollars

Amid the buzz of machinery, the clang of glass jars and the tangy smell of spices, the Pennsylvania Association of Regional Food Banks (PARF) gathered in Tipton on July 27 to celebrate 8,000 cases of spaghetti sauce for hungry Pennsylvanians.

Why the celebration? Partly it was the cost of the sauce – only $3.79 a case as compared to the typical price of $8.00. Partly it was the unique teamwork of the project involving PARF members, Del Grosso Foods, food industry donors, the Indiana University Truck Driving Training Program and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

Donated labor, food ingredients and processing facilities enabled PARF organizers to achieve the remarkably low cost. Funds from the State Food Purchase Program and the Emergency Food Assistance Development Program, both administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, covered the costs of undonated inputs.

PARF president Sheila Christopher thanked Joe Del Grosso, vice-president of Del Grosso Foods, for his leadership in pulling the project together and for donating the production facilities. Seventy Del Grosso employees worked eight hours with no remuneration to make a personal contribution to the run. Joey, as he prefers to be called, alluded to the social conscience of his late father in setting the tone for the company’s philanthropic endeavors. “My dad would have been so proud of all of this. He always tried to do different things to help the community.”

Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Samuel Hayes spoke of the value of such projects, “This is a private-public partnership which takes available resources and enlarges them so that more people in need can benefit. Special mention must be made to the regional food banks, the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center, and all of the groups that facilitated this partnership.” State Representative Larry Sather also hailed the run noting that it evidences “that business and government are willing to make the sacrifice for needy individuals in the Commonwealth.”

The Del Grosso Foods project, the first of its kind for the full PARF membership, joins several others accomplished by regional food banks in cooperation with Furman Foods, Ateeco, and Van De Kamp’s. As a result of those projects, food banks were able to provide more low cost and nutritious pork and beans, pasta and fish sticks to people in need.