Coming full circle.

It’s not often that you get to give back to the people who were there to lend a helping hand when you needed it most. Recently, we were contacted by our old friend, Pastor Ben at Christian Life Center. Pastor Ben holds a very dear place in our hearts as he was a positive force in helping support our mission driven business from the very start. As part of our Holiday Give Back campaign, we are thrilled to be able to make a very special donation to his very special hunger-solving program. To get the full story, we talked with one of our first employees and Director of Procurement, Kevin Kresloff.

OK - set the scene for us - when did you first meet Pastor Ben and what was going on with Hungry Harvest at that time?

KEVIN: So this was back in 2015, during the early days of the company. I had gotten involved with Hungry Harvest through a good friend of mine, at this point we were still going door to door to get customers and needed to find a new space to pack the bags. The founders were still going to school at University of Maryland and were put in touch with a nearby church that ran weekly food distributions. We started donating to them and somewhere along the way, Pastor Ben realized we needed a new place to fulfill our orders and run operations while we looked for a more permanent location. He graciously offered up a refrigerated trailer and space in their parking lot for us to use on the weekends for several months.

I would procure the produce and have the deliveries dropped there - we’d be waiting in the parking lot to unload it into the cold truck and then would back up a box truck to it. When the two trucks were back to back we had one long enclosed space to run a production line.

Why did this place in time feel so important?  

KEVIN: This was a special time for us. The company was young and we were motivated to get our mission off the ground. To help make that happen, we went to homeless shelters and recruited people looking for work and an opportunity they might not otherwise easily receive. Just like Pastor Ben was helping us get up and running, we wanted to pay it forward and help someone else who might be down on their luck. This was an incredible experience for me. While my friends at college were starting their weekends by partying and getting ready for the football game, I was starting mine in a completely opposite way. Some of these guys we worked with had been incarcerated and were struggling to find work, or were simply victims of circumstance, but all of them were motivated and dedicated to the mission. I made some incredible friendships and learned a lot along the way. We worked hard and one of the guys is actually working with us to this day! It was a unique time of my life, with a unique group of people doing unique work and I am so grateful for it.

Pastor Ben seems like a pretty incredible person, what makes him so special? What did you learn from your time with him?

KEVIN: 100%. Pastor Ben is the kind of person who puts others before himself. He showed us through his actions what it means to be generous. He would never turn anyone away that was in need of help. It doesn’t matter if you are a part of his church community or not, his outreach work stems from the goodness of his heart, it is why the name of their program “Passion and Compassion” is so fitting. By giving us space to use, he showed us that partnerships matter, that building community matters and that when we work together to support each other we can achieve great things. That experience has stuck with me to this day and it helped shape the model of how we continue to operate at Hungry Harvest.

Fast forward to today, how does it make you feel for Hungry Harvest to give back to the place that helped us get started? Why does this donation feel so important to you? 

Pastor Ben was there for us when we needed him. Over the years, we’ve been so focused on making new connections and finding new ways to make an impact, that we simply lost touch with him. COVID-19 changed all that. When we had to shut down our Produce in a SNAP markets and switch gears to create our Emergency Food Box program, we discovered we were able to give back in yet another way. So when he called us up asking if we could help out by supporting their current food access efforts, we jumped at the opportunity. I think it is incredibly important to remember where you started and to help those who helped you along the way. That’s why we’re excited to commit to donating almost 4,000 pounds of fresh fruit & veggies to Pastor Ben’s Passion & Compassion Outreach Program through the end of the year. 

This Thanksgiving we are grateful for all of our Harvest Heroes. Your support helps make donations such as these are possible. If you haven’t already, please consider contributing to our Holiday Give Back campaign as we work to make additional fresh produce donations in all of our markets.