Et cetera : AmeriCorps NCCC-FEMA Corps Pine 7 Hosts Their First Community Day

Pine 7 after a job well done outside of Safeway Grocery Store.

By John Tamariz

After weeks of planning, AmeriCorps NCCC-FEMA Corps Pine 7 held their first Community Day on May 13, in Kensington, Maryland. Pine 7 teamed up with the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB) to host a food drive at a Safeway Grocery Store. The team’s object was to promote the donation of food items from the Kensington community and deliver any items received to CAFB, an independent non-profit organization that focuses on nutrition education, food distribution and food sources in the Washington metro area.

Prior to the event, the team created 250 flyers identifying the most needed food items as well as providing a brief explanation of AmeriCorps NCCC and the Capital Area Food Bank. As community members brought in food on the day of the event, the team organized and catalogued each non-perishable item into different boxes. In the end, Pine 7 sorted a total of 307 pounds of non-perishable food items—enough to make 236 meals!

Pine 7 members were pleasantly surprised by the number of donations provided by the public and with the enthusiasm to donate that community members displayed in the food drive. “The Food Bank distributes to food kitchens, non-profits, children’s programs, elderly programs, sick programs, and a number more. This is pretty awesome, because the donations are going to a ton of different sort of organizations,” said a fellow Pine 7 member, Allyson Eames after the event. Ultimately, this event was a great example at how cooperation within a team as well as a community can bring such valuable and significant benefits to others in need.