Vicky Collins, Director of Radford City DSS and a major part of Food Distribution, and I were invited to present a short power point on the Food Distribution at an event this last Thursday. Bobby Nicholson, who is a City Council member,wanted us to attend the event entitled Food Security and Sustainability in Our Rural Community: Addressing Hunger in the NRV. At some point we also became presenters. This "food summit" was sponsored by The Center of Student Engagement and Community Partnership of Virginia Tech, The Community Foundation of the New River Valley, and The Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance. There were five local presentations and we were last with a focus on Collaborative Networks.There were also international presenters there as part of a larger conference at Tech.
I got together a power point of 28 slide which combined brief text with photos. It focused on the following areas: the collaborative effort, the sources of the food and how acquired, the actual distribution, lessons learned and challenges, the next steps and the big dream. It was very well received and we got many compliments. What was truly amazing was the note thrust into my hand by a young man who didn't even speak and hurried off.
I only got a chance to say thank you and he was gone. Vicky took one look and said "we got a love note." This deeply touched me. To have this total stranger who was with the international group express such appreciation means more to me than the awards I've received. What a gift. This not just for Vicky and I but the whole team.
BTW, today we had 70 shoppers and two truck loads of food. Dave Moore, one of the drivers, said that soon we would be getting dairy products as well. WOW!!!!
This afternoon I had to shop at WalMart and stopped personally to tell Pete, one of the zone managers, what a difference the produce had made and that today we fed 70 households.This really made an impact on him.
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