School districts pack buses with donations for Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank fundraiser

CANTON – More than a dozen busloads of food donations were unloaded Monday at the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank's Stark County campus as part of its "Hunger: The Bus Stops Here" effort.

The fundraiser, which has run for the past five years, is part of the food bank's larger Harvest for Hunger initiative. It solicits donations from students, staff and residents of 17 school districts throughout Stark, Carroll, Summit, Tuscarawas and Wayne counties with the help of the Stark County Educational Service Center and several volunteers from the area.

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This year's fundraiser included donations from people in the Alliance, Canton, Green, Jackson, Massillon, North Canton, Plain and Sandy Valley school districts.

Raven Gayheart, public relations and communications manager at the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, said it's inspiring to see people from competing school districts putting aside their differences in the name of fighting hunger.

"How often do you see schools that tend to be rivals with one another for sporting events and things like that coming together to help feed their neighbors?" Gayheart said. "I mean, we all agree that no kid should have to sit in a classroom grappling with an empty stomach and trying to focus on schoolwork."

Surgere, others businesses giving back

One of the first buses to unload Monday came from the Marlington Local School District.

Debie Weisel, a bus driver for the district, delivered a load of donations with each seat tightly packed with canned goods and other nonperishable food items. Weisel said the large number of donations is characteristic of the community's generosity.

"There are kids on my bus that actually could probably use the food from the food bank, and they're giving food to the food bank (instead)," Weisel said.

When Weisel's bus arrived, several volunteers from local businesses swarmed to help unload. The volunteers worked to fill large boxes, which were then taken into the food bank's warehouse to be stored and, eventually, turned into meals.

Employees from Surgere, a supply chain management company located in Green, made up a large portion of the volunteers. Steve Smolinski, one of the volunteers from Surgere, said he chose to work the fundraiser because he and his coworkers had a positive experience at the event the year before. The company offers paid time off for employees who get involved with volunteer opportunities.

The bus driver who delivered food for the Jackson Local School District, Andy Moore, said she volunteered to drive because she too has had positive experiences working with the food bank in previous years. She said she appreciates the generosity of those involved.

"It's the kindness, it's the heart of the people, helping somebody else," she said. "That's what it's about, right?"

Making a difference

The "Hunger: The Bus Stops Here," fundraiser is especially influential to the food bank's yearly operations, Gayheart said. The amount of donations the food bank obtains through the event heavily dictates the number of families it is able to serve.

According to a news release from the food bank, it helped distribute 22.5 million meals to its hunger-relief partners in 2021. Additionally, the food bank estimated that one in seven people in Northeast Ohio may face food insecurity and hunger in 2022.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent rising inflations rates across Ohio and the country, Gayheart said, the amount of people who rely on the assistance has increased.

"The community in general has just been so generous (in) supporting the food bank, supporting Harvest for Hunger and realizing that access to nourishing food is a basic human right," Gayheart said. "As a community, we will not rest until everyone has nourishing food."

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Monday's fundraiser brought in nearly 10,000 pounds of food, which is enough for about 9,600 meals to be made available to those who need it, according to a news release from the food bank.

Reach Ryan via email at rmaxin@gannett.com, on Twitter at @ryanmaxin or by phone at 330-580-8412.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank solicits donations from local schools