Bring the Harvest Home provides help and assistance to those who need it

Major Dwayne Durham of the Salvation Army, Jason Halstead the executive director of Brother’s Keeper, Karla Greenway, the CEO of Interfaith Emergency Services, Marion County Commissioner Kathy Bryant and representatives from His Compassion Food Bank pose with their checks for $40,000 during the Bring The Harvest Home food drive on the Ocala Downtown Square in Ocala, Fla. on Friday, Dec. 3, 2021. Besides the food donations, Stan Hanson donated $160,000 to the Community Foundation For Ocala and Marion County that was split four ways into $40,000 each and given to His Compassion Food Bank, Brother’s Keeper, the Salvation Army and Interfaith Emergency Services. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2021.

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Posted December 3, 2021 | By Matthew Cretul
matthew@ocalagazette.com

About a hundred people including city and county elected leaders gathered downtown on the square for the Bring the Harvest Home food drive. A steady stream of cars dropped off over 10 tons of food donations during the event, but it was one donation that really stood out.

Ocala residents Stan and Martha Hanson donated a total of $160,000, which was split between four local food pantries: Interfaith Emergency Services, Brother’s Keeper, Salvation Army and His Compassion.

Major Marion Durham with the Salvation Army of Ocala/Marion County applauded the donation as special and much appreciated.

“The Hansons and their gifts will make a difference today, and for many days to come,” said Durham. “They are a model of the way this community loves and serves other people. And we’re very grateful.”

Hanson said he wanted to assist the organizations in a way that would allow them to focus on their missions.

“This I think will help with operating expenses and do some things. The food’s great, and they need to get the food out to people, but they also have to operate annually. And we thought we’d give a little hand on the financial part. So that’s what we did,” he said.

Interfaith Emergency Services CEO Karla Grimsley-Greenway detailed the multiple ways large donations can be used.

“The Hanson donation was just such a surprise and a blessing that goes so far to help us when our pantry gets low. We can just go out and purchase food in bulk and make sure that we have all the staple items that we’d like to give every family,” she said.

“But beyond that, it helps us keep our trucks on the road,” Grimsley-Greenway further explained. “A lot of people don’t realize that we have a daily expense of sending our refrigerated box trucks out to all the stores and other places that we get donations from on a daily basis. And so some of that money will help us keep those trucks on the road picking up our regular donations. And those are the donations we get from the grocery stores that include you know, the dairy, produce, and the meats. So all that supplements what we’re getting here today.”

Joy Guidan, the director of Resources and Development for His Compassion Food Bank agreed with the sentiments on operational costs, especially vehicle and fuel costs, and said large donations allow them to quickly expand their services in certain ways.

“Donations like the one we just got, as we get them, help us to improve our facility, improve our ability to get out and about. We’ve bought trucks with some donations so that we can take food out in about to the different, more remote areas so that the people living there don’t have to come directly to us,” she relayed.

Brother’s Keeper Director Jason Halstead echoed the gratitude and pointed out they often see an increased demand for support around the holidays.

“So obviously the holidays always bring around a special need for assistance here in the community and so we at Brother’s Keeper, and I’m sure other agencies, are seeing increased demand for food assistance and other types of assistance,” he said.

“The blessing of Bring the Harvest Home is right on time and just a great sign of our community’s caring and love for our neighbors. And obviously, the extra check and very generous donation is going to help a lot of people here in the community. So, it’s a blessing and we’re very thankful for it,” Halstead continued.

Halstead mentioned it isn’t just the holidays that have increased the demand, it’s also the growth Marion County is experiencing, adding, “There’s just a big demand right now. A lot of new people are moving into the area, a lot of single mothers, a lot of elderly, a lot of disabled who are having a hard time making ends meet and this will help kind of fill that gap for a lot of people.”

Grimsley-Greenway described how factors such as the housing market can lead to more people seeking assistance.

“A lot of the families that we work with that are marginal, a lot of them have lost their housing because of the property value increases and because of the moratorium on rentals, a lot of people that own rental properties have sold them now. And we get calls every day from people going, ‘my landlord just sold the property and I’m displaced’, and they’re having a hard time finding places to live that they can afford. So their budgets are even tighter,” she said.

Another consideration food banks and other organizations that help the less fortunate have experienced, said Durham, has been COVID.

“One of the things that we’ve seen during the pandemic is those who are financially fragile, that they are coming to us in greater numbers during COVID,” added Grimsley-Greenway.

Not only has it pushed some into financial turmoil who wouldn’t otherwise be experiencing it, but Durham noted it has also put a halt to certain support events.

“And because of the precautions that we need to take, it’s been difficult to serve the community,” she said. “And the way that we had done in the past, for instance, our community dinner that we do 365 days a year, we have not been having folks at our dining room. We’ve been doing take-out, so we don’t have a communal space. Which is sad, because part of the reason that our dinners are helpful, it’s not just the nutritional needs. It’s the emotional and spiritual connection with other people. And we have been able to do that. And that’s, we haven’t done that since March of 2020. We’ve still been feeding people, but it’s not in the same manner. And that’s difficult.”

Grimsley-Greenway said it’s also difficult for many people to even ask for help.

“It really touches you when you take a call on the phone, and somebody is trying to keep their composure, but they’re calling to ask for help and you hear their voice start breaking up. And you realize how humbling and hard it is for a lot of people to ask for help, especially in times like these when you’ve got a lot of people that haven’t ever needed help before,” she said.

In the end, Grimsley-Greenway said events such as Bring the Harvest Home show how the leaders, employees, and residents of Ocala/Marion County pull together to help out those who need it.

“I don’t know of another community that rallies like ours does. I am so happy and thankful that Commissioner Bryant kept this charge, she took the torch [over from Bring the Harvest Home founder former County Commissioner Mike Amsden] and has just kept it going. To have the first responders and all the county agencies come together just says everything about our county and how our elected officials right down to all of our paid county employees actually care about their county. They’re not just here to get a paycheck. These first responders save lives every day, but they’re still wanting to collect food. And a lot of them even bought food for this. Because they care, they truly care about the people they serve. And I just think that’s a testament to our community,” she said.

Hanson and his wife have donated to multiple local charities throughout the years, both personally as well as through the foundation named after their son who was killed in a motorcycle accident.

He said they give back in order to help those who need it, especially given the upcoming season.

“It’s that time of the year and Martha and I want to be sure people have good holidays, and a good Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he relayed.

Bring the Harvest Home is Marion County’s annual holiday food drive. It happens every December to help local food pantries restock their shelves for the holidays. This year’s event collected over 20,000 pounds of food.