There's no bones about where all the beef went

DailyPress.com ^ | December 19, 2003 | Alison Freehling

[Blzbba]

NEWPORT NEWS -- When Jane Susan Frank sent a letter to Smithfield Packing Co. about a severe shortage of meat for hungry local families, she didn't expect anything huge in return. Maybe a couple of hams, or a nice box of hot dogs.

Not 10,000 pounds of meat.

Not 40 cases of pork chops, 50 cases each of roast beef, pastrami and corned beef, 118 cases of pork rib patties and more. Not $24,650 worth of food that should go to at least 20,000 people in time for holiday dinners.

But that's what arrived Thursday at the Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula - the mother lode of meat, by far the largest donation to the Foodbank. Packed in white and brown boxes, the raw and cooked pork and beef products quickly filled up shelves and freezers that had been empty after Hurricane Isabel and the Thanksgiving holiday.

"We were so desperately short of protein," said Frank, vice president of development for the Foodbank. "Rice and beans and canned foods are not a good holiday meal. That might sustain people, but it certainly will break their spirit. This is just really, really huge."

The Foodbank serves a wide region, including Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson, Williamsburg and Gloucester, James City, Mathews, Surry and York counties. The organization distributed more than 6 million pounds of food in the last fiscal year.

Bulk donations of meat are very rare, Frank said. Instead, people might drop off single turkeys or hams, while supermarkets might give a box or two at a time. The Foodbank has to buy the rest.

After Hurricane Isabel, the organization stripped its shelves to help the Red Cross with disaster relief, giving out 500,000 pounds of food in less than three weeks. An emergency food drive just before Thanksgiving brought in more, but shelves were soon bare again.

The Christmas season is particularly hard for hungry families because children are out of school for more than two weeks and don't get free breakfasts and lunches, Frank said. The donation from Smithfield Packing and Gwaltney of Smithfield came just in time, she said.

While the companies regularly donate to schools, churches and civic groups, this is their first gift to the Foodbank.

"It was a little sobering to all of us to find out how great the need is in this area," said Keller Watts, a vice president of sales at Smithfield Packing. "Food is something that most of us take for granted."

As workers unloaded the 18-wheeler from Smithfield, Frank stood in the cold parking lot and hugged Watts.

"You're my new angel," she told him.

The meat will be distributed immediately to soup kitchens, churches and other organizations that feed the hungry. The Foodbank also is using emergency funding from local governments to get through the holidays.

Even with the unexpected bonanza, all or most of the meat likely will be gone by Christmas, said Steve Terveer, executive director of the Foodbank. "It doesn't take long," Terveer said. "We always need more."

Alison Freehling can be reached at 247-4789 or by email at afreehling@dailypress.com

[Blzbba]

I thought this was an uplifting Christmas article! Note to self: Support Smithfield Packing Company whenever possible. Sorry for the excerpt.

[Petronski]

Meat . . . arrrllll . . . "

[Constitution Day]

VERY cool.

Smithfield has a plant just around the corner from where I work, in the same industrial park.

[dead]

Everytime a poor person gets meat for holiday dinner, an annoying vegetarian angel loses her wings.

[Hank Rearden]

Good story, good company. But I thought I was clicking on an article about how us Atkins people are eating up all the cows.

[Who dat?]

I thought this was an uplifting Christmas article!

It’s nice. At least the food bank seemed appreciative.

It was my pleasure to be the person in charge of trying to unload 73 frozen turkeys one year. It took *hours* worth of phone calls before I could locate a shelter in Oakland that reluctantly accepted them. Even then I had to haul them down there (three trips) and unload them and carry them down to the basement and put them in their walk-in freezer myself. Their sullen, surly employees (volunteers?) wouldn’t lift a finger.

But whatever. Maybe someone enjoyed them.

[TheDon]

Wow! And no one put a gun to their head to do it? How is it possible?

[metesky]

Nice story.

[MineralMan]

"It took *hours* worth of phone calls before I could locate a shelter in Oakland that reluctantly accepted them. "

How unfortunate. You'd have better luck at something that calls itself a food bank. I don't know of any specifically in Oakland, though.

At Christmas and Thanksgiving, there's a real glut of frozen turkeys available. So many supermarkets are giving them away if you buy a certain amount of other groceries that folks are donating them right and left. Homeless shelters, in particular, tend to be overwhelmed with them, and they often have limited freezer space.

Food banks, on the other hand, generally are more than happy to get these birds. The shelters are, too, the rest of the year. I have a regular arrangement with a local meat market to deliver one turkey a week to the local homeless shelter. They're very happy to get it.

I hope this experience doesn't sour you on trying to help again.

[solo gringo]

There are lots of companys that believe in shareing smithfield is one of them god bless them.