Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Kelvin Ringold | Staff Sgt. Mark Davis, 62nd Expeditionary Signal Battalion, 11th Signal Brigade, helps...... read more read more
KILLEEN, Texas-- Fort Hood Soldiers and community members from the Killeen area assisted during the 25th annual Food for Families food drive on Nov. 21 at the Killeen Special Events Center.
The regional food drive is a single-day event and helps food banks and organizations around Central Texas with food they can donate to those in need for the holidays and the upcoming year.
Along with other community volunteers, command financial specialists from various units on post volunteered their time and were instrumental in helping sort through and organize the plentiful donations that were dropped off throughout the day.
“Being a CFS means going beyond the boundaries of just doing a job,” said Staff Sgt. Mark Davis, 62nd Expeditionary Signal Battalion, 11th Signal Brigade. “You have to actually genuinely care about the Soldiers and their families and push the envelope trying to make a honest change in a Soldier’s life.”
Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Northington II, 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, and his spouse Bellah were among those there supporting the food drive and enjoy doing charity work together.
“It’s one of the good parts of the job where you get to give back and help people,” Northington said.
The donations will also be used for holiday baskets that will be given to preselected personnel and will contain enough food for a full holiday meal.
“It’s a rewarding experience being able to give the Soldiers these baskets,” Northington said.
In the Killeen area, one of the organizations that will benefit from the food drive is the Killeen Food Care Center. The center is responsible for helping many Families throughout the year and will be putting together the holiday baskets.
“We will distribute 1,300 Thanksgiving baskets,” said Dr. Ann Farris, director, Killeen Food Care Center.
One thousand baskets will be handed out to Soldiers and their Families on Wednesday and 300 will go to civilians and their families on Tuesday, Farris said.
Farris has been involved with the food drive for 10 years and is always enamored with how quickly and effectively people work together.
“The fastest way to build a team is to work together, serve together, or have fun together,” she said. “Today we had some fun working together which resulted in a great team effort.”
It’s not always current Soldiers that want to give back and help their surrounding communities. There also was a strong veteran presence eager to help during the food drive.
After serving in the Army for five years and being out for three months, Thomas Best, formerly of 502nd Human Resources Company, 4th Special Troops Battalion, 4th Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), wanted to make sure he volunteered for the food drive.
“I love volunteering,” Best said. “The community supports us and I’m still a Soldier no matter what. It’s good to give back.”
Last year, 103,000 pounds of non-perishable goods were received through the Food for Families food drive.
With the help of the local community and businesses, this year’s final total increased to 107,431 pounds.
“It was great to see the local agencies come in and deliver such great amounts of food,” Davis said.
With Thanksgiving coming up in a few short days, Soldiers and civilians in need will be able to have their Thanksgiving baskets ready giving the annual food drive another successful year.
“The food drive is a great opportunity to show Soldiers and their Families how much they are appreciated and how much people actually do care and want to help out during the holiday season,” Davis said.
| Date Taken: | 11.26.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 11.26.2014 11:48 |
| Story ID: | 148899 |
| Location: | KILLEEN, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 83 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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