Donations increase during 2015 Feds Feed Families campaign at AEDC

AEDC team members assist volunteers with the Good Samaritan of Tullahoma load boxes of food donated as part of the Complex’s Feds Feed Families campaign. Feds Feed Families is an Air Force wide campaign, which AEDC team members have been participating in for the past four years to provide food and other necessities to families in the area who are in need of assistance. Pictured left to right are Shannon Allen, AEDC; Kathy Pelton, Good Samaritan Tullahoma; Pat Crosslin, Good Samaritan Tullahoma; and Peggy Proffitt and William Mallory, AEDC. (Photo by Deidre Ortiz)

Donations increase during 2015 Feds Feed Families campaign at AEDC

: With the help of several Team AEDC members and volunteers, 633 pounds of non-perishable food, personal hygiene and baby items were collected and donated to three local Good Samaritan sites through this year’s Feds Feed Families campaign. Feds Feed Families is an Air Force wide campaign to provide food and other necessities to families in the area who are in need of assistance. Pictured left to right is the AEDC Feds Feed Families team: Patrick Jourdan, Amanda Dotson, LaLonnie Saltzman, 1st Lt. Carlin Lucente, Peggy Proffitt, William Mallory and Shannon Allen (Photo by Deidre Ortiz)

Donations increase during 2015 Feds Feed Families campaign at AEDC

Published Oct. 19, 2015
By Peggy Proffitt, Contributing writer
AEDC/PA

ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. -- The Feds Feed Families Campaign is an Air Force wide program that personnel at Arnold Air Force Base have participated in for the past four years.

This year 633 pounds of non-perishable food, personal hygiene and baby items were collected and donated to three local Good Samaritan sites.

The program provides an opportunity for everyone at Arnold to give back to the surrounding communities. We coordinate with three local Good Samaritan agencies. These agencies are non-profit and serve the Tullahoma, Manchester and Decherd communities. There are so many families in our area in desperate need of assistance to provide even basic necessities to their children and families, and this program plays a vital role in providing food, school supplies, baby care items and personal hygiene items to those families.

In spite of the many challenges we have faced in the last year, we have been able to maintain the spirit of giving back to our community through the Feds Feed Families Campaign. The program normally runs June through August of each year. This year we were able to begin collecting items in early June and the program was extended until the first of October!

On Friday, Oct. 2, we met with Kathy Pelton, executive director of the Tullahoma Good Samaritan, and Grace Thompson of the Decherd Good Samaritan and Patrick Jourdan, Arnold AFB Commissary manager to distribute the items so generously donated by caring people at Arnold. Fay Jones, pantry coordinator for the Manchester Good Samaritan was unable to attend, however, we were later able to deliver the donations for the Manchester office to them.

Those of us working in the campaign would like to express our great appreciation to all those who gave donations to support this cause as well as to all the volunteers who helped make this year's campaign a success.

As the point of contact for the Feds Feed Families Campaign at Arnold AFB, I would like to recognize the team who helped to make the campaign a success this year. Kudos to Amanda Dotson, Shannon Allen, Elijah Minter, Melissa Minter, William Mallory, Jennifer Clark, Melissa Tate, Tech Sgt. Shara Jackson, 1st Lt. Carlin Lucente and Lalonnie Saltzman. We also appreciate the assistance and cooperation of Patrick Jourdan for allowing us to gather, weigh and store the donations in his warehouse facility at the Commissary until we could distribute at the end of the campaign.

-AEDC-