Food drives are a staple of the holiday season and for good reason. Everyone loves to make charitable donations, and food drives offer a hands-on way to help your community. Here at Tower Hill, Hiller Harvest has been supporting Lutheran Community Services for over 13 years thanks to the participation of all students, old and young. As Ellen Ellis, one of the lower school Hiller Harvest coordinators, states, “For lower school, they definitely are very into it. They love bringing in things and seeing the piles grow.” And grow they did; across all grade levels, almost 3,000 items were brought in this year during Hiller Harvest. And while that’s certainly an achievement, I wanted to learn more about what steps we could take to help more.
I interviewed Alex Mazzei, the marketing manager for LCS, and Kim Turner, the communications director of the Food Bank of Delaware to learn more about the needs of our local food banks. Both organizations get a majority of their food through large corporate sponsorships and food purchases. Turner states, “Most of our food is purchased…in October, we had 344,000 lbs of donated product and 1.2 million pounds of purchased product.” One might think that this is due to food banks not getting the food donations they need, but it’s the opposite; these organizations don’t really need them at all. “It's not to say that we don’t enjoy getting food donations…but generally the most effective way to support us is through monetary donations,” Mazzei states. Turner echoes a similar point, “We want people to support us the way they want to, but obviously monetary donations are most helpful because we can then direct them to our most needed items.” These “most needed items” are often products like dairy and produce that cannot be easily donated due to their perishable nature. In October 2022 alone, the FBD distributed 300,000 pounds of fresh produce, almost all of which was purchased. In addition, both Lutheran Community Services and the Food Bank of Delaware have partnerships with bulk suppliers, farmers, and local grocers that allow any money donated to them to purchase far more food than the average person can get at the grocery store. A 2020 report from FBD showed that every dollar donated can provide three full meals to someone in need.
LCS and the FBD also note that the time of year is very important when it comes to food drives. When asked about the tendency towards giving during the holidays, Mazzei remarks, “There is a big boom where we get a lot of support, and then we’ll have to ration that for a couple of months. So where our actual low point is, that's over the spring and summer,” and Turner agrees that “Late winter through spring is the quietest time of year for donations.” Even though most donations made through food drives are non-perishable and can therefore be used to cover slower seasons, this creates another problem for food pantries: storage. Mazzei says that often, in late fall and early winter, LCS struggles to find space for all of the donations they receive. It doesn’t help that most other pantries are full as well, meaning that there is nowhere to store these donations.
But this doesn't mean that food drives are meaningless. Mazzei still supports them, especially in schools, “because, there is something to be said for just the emotional impact of [donating food].” Turner also agrees that sometimes the greatest impact of a food drive isn’t the actual donation, but rather the community awareness that stems from them. Here at Tower, upper school students get a chance to speak directly with volunteers and those who use food assistance, and many lower schoolers get their first introduction to food insecurity through the books that Ms. Ellis and the lower school teachers use as teaching tools. They also use Hiller Harvest as a way to teach math by keeping a progress tracking tree whose leaves turn to fall colors for every ten items donated. When I talked to lower school students, they told me how their teachers were very excited about Hiller Harvest, and it motivated them to participate as well.
The Hiller Harvest tree in the lower school hallway.
Overall, I think Hiller Harvest is a great Tower Hill tradition and one that should continue for years to come. I also believe that it is our responsibility to do the most good possible for our community, even if it means amending our traditions. Looking forward to next year, I hope that Hiller Harvest will continue to support the Wilmington community in an even more impactful way, and I, for one, can’t wait to participate.
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