Regional chain donates to local food agencies
Buying Valentine’s Day candy for your loved one this weekend can help provide relief to those struggling to afford food.
Mast General Store is teaming up with local food agencies for its ninth annual “Be a Sweetheart … Feed the Hungry” event. For every pound of candy purchased on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12, each store will donate $1 to a local food distribution organization. Columbia’s location will donate to Harvest Hope Food Bank.
“It’s important to remember that at Harvest Hope, we dedicate 98 cents out of every dollar donated to feed the hungry,” said Scot Garrick, communications manager of Harvest Hope Food Bank. “So money that comes from partners turns right around and goes to food for the hungry.”
Harvest Hope Food Bank is a nonprofit, regional food distribution organization that serves 20 counties in South Carolina. According to Garrick, Harvest Hope serves about 48,000 individuals every week, and it served about a million families last year. Harvest Hope accepts food donations and uses all monetary gifts to purchase food.
“We have an emergency food pantry at Shop Road, and people come to us directly and we give them food,” Garrick said. “We also work with about 450 agency partners. Those are organizations who come to us for food … and take it out to their individual feeding missions.”
“Be a Sweetheart” is in its ninth year, but it’s the first for the capital city location that opened on Main Street over the summer. The event aims to raise awareness of hunger in local communities, as well as the world, while also contributing monetary donations to help fight hunger.
According to Garrick, 17 percent of South Carolina’s population lives in poverty and one in six families goes to bed hungry every night.
“It’s important for us to be an active part of each local community, and human services is one of our core areas,” said Deb Lazenby, community relations manager of Mast General Store. “And we thought, ‘Well, we have our candy, and it’s Valentine’s Day. Donations are kind of slow down this time of year after Christmas, and this is a great way to help them out.”
Plus, the stores carry more than 500 types of old-fashioned and modern candies and chocolates that people can buy for the romantic occasion.
“We’re known for candy, so we can only imagine how much we can provide for them,” said Jill Dortch, area manager for fashion of the Columbia Mast General Store. “We sell thousands of dollars worth of candy over a weekend, especially for Valentine’s.”
Although $1 may not seem like much, each donated to Harvest Hope can buy three meals, according to Dortch.
“Fifteen dollars in the food bank will actually be able to feed a family for a week,” Lazenby said. “We’ll also be collecting change in our change jars to go to Harvest Hope Food Bank.”
All seven Mast General Store locations, including Columbia, are taking part in the event, each working with its own local food agency — Greenville, S.C., with Loaves and Fishes; Asheville, Waynesville and Hendersonville, N.C., with MANNA FoodBank; Boone and Valle Crucis, N.C., with the Hunger Coalition; and Knoxville, Tenn., with Second Harvest.
The Mast General Store is located in downtown Columbia at 1601 Main St. and is open Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. To find out more about how to volunteer and help fight hunger in South Carolina, visit harvesthope.com.