Richard Mancini, a community volunteer at the Greater Fall River Food Pantry, recently found himself with a frustrating challenge at the absolute wrong time. A long time donor of fresh and frozen soup to food pantries in the area, Blount Fine Foods, called to introduce itself and schedule a drop off of soup to help the food pantry meet the increase in demand for donations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mancini had a full freezer the day the call came in, but he knew it would likely be empty a day or two later, and he did not want to turn away a new donor.
“Having your freezer full would normally be the ideal situation, but not in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Mancini. “Families in the Greater Fall River area need as much help as they can get right now, and everything we have in stock moves out very quickly. Turning down a donation from what we would love to be a steady partner like Blount is not something we can afford to do.”
Unwilling to pass on such a valuable donation, Mancini pushed his challenge back onto officials at Blount, asking them to help find a way to keep more product in cold storage. For the solution, Blount turned to a neighbor in the Fall River Industrial Park—Whirlpool Corporation.
Employee Volunteers from Whirlpool Corporation Provide Solution by Packing Donated Freezer with Food
Whirlpool quickly agreed to donate a deep freezer, and then sent a team of employees to not only deliver and install it the next day, but the crew then filled the freezer with the Blount product that the donation enabled to be safely stored.
“With more cold storage capacity, we are now able to store more frozen foods, which in turn means we have more to give to families in our community who desperately need good, nutritious meals right now,” added Mancini. “We are thrilled that a new partner was willing to work with us and was able to introduce us to another important business in our area, and that the two so quickly and eagerly stepped up to help us better help others. Our thanks go out to Blount and Whirlpool for their support.”