Love One Another Service Challenge Launch
At every Saturday Distribution, you can see the level of need increasing. With inflation rising and the general cost of living going up, people are resorting to seeking aid from a food rescue bank like us.
On Saturday, July 20, we served over 1600 clients! You can only imagine how busy that day was. We are so thankful for all the committed volunteers who come out every week to support our operations so we can provide for all of these clients. Recently, we conducted a survey and found that on average, for every client we serve on a Saturday distribution- they are using that food to feed approximately 4.2 people in their household. Talk about impact- that’s nearly 7000 people we serve from our Saturday distributions every week. Of course, every week may vary slightly depending on what we are able to acquire, but we are grateful for our partnerships with farms, wholesalers, and businesses that provide food for us to feed our communities.
Meet Leo Delgado, an employee on the So What Else Food Rescue Bank team. Leo has been working at So What Else as the volunteer coordinator for the last three and a half months. His responsibilities include finding and scheduling volunteers as well as introducing them to the organization.
Leo has been working for non-profits in the DMV for over 20 years. He appreciates the fact that So What Else has many services. In addition to food, So What Else offers youth development opportunities including camps and classes for theater and other skill sets. Leo feels that these programs “empower [the kids] to believe that anything’s possible.”
Leo, a DC native, values using his resources to help those locally.
“It just takes me back to my roots,” he said. “If I’m gonna give back somewhere, it’s giving back to [my] hometown, [my] own backyard.”
SO WHAT ELSE NEEDS COMMUNITY SUPPORT 
“I think it’s important for organizations like this to move forward,” he said. “You need that continuity and commodity between the community because it truly does take a village to be a part of raising some of these kids that need the help and support.”
“A lot of these kids, especially in the sector that we’re helping out with, they need the support, they need the resources we’re a cornerstone for,” Leo said.
In honor of that spirit, I urge you to join our movement to help us continue feeding families in need. We launched our Love One Another Challenge to not only inspire a sense of service in our community, but also to help raise awareness of the need to fund food banks like us and our partners. We joined in partnership with other non-profits that are also doing tremendous work to address food insecurity- together, we can make a larger impact. This challenge is in collaboration with: Manna Food Center, Farmlink Project, The Food Project, and Mentoring Through Athletics
We are asking participants to challenge others to serve and make social media posts with the hashtag #LoveOneAnotherChallenge about their service experience.
We are inspired by the communities we serve and the diversity of cultures and languages that make up our staff, volunteers, students, and clients. In that commitment to service, we launched this challenge to engage others into action.
People can challenge others across the country and spread a movement of love, action and peace! If you choose to volunteer and/or donate with us or one of our amazing 4 non-profit partners that’s completely up to you! We just ask that you share your post with the #LoveOneAnotherChallenge so we can see it.
The predominant result of this challenge is multiplying acts of service and kindness and engaging regular people in the work of not for profits and other mission-driven businesses. Get involved, come together, lead with love, and join the human family.
Well, what are you waiting for? Click here to join the Love One Another Challenge (to donate).
#LoveOneAnotherChallenge
For more information you can visit the website for the challenge here.
