Charlotte landscapers help feed families affected by COVID-19

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina has seen a spike in requests for food assistance.

The Morgan Landscape Group coordinated a virtual fundraiser with its clients to help address this need.

“Second Harvest has a great reputation, so after looking into their website, it seemed monetary donations were the biggest need,” said Mark Morgan Jr., vice president of The Morgan Landscape Group. “We felt like if there was ever a time to do something like this, now was the time.”

With a company match of $5,000, the essential business collected close to $12,000 in donations.

“We have a great client base and would not have reached our fundraising goal without them,” Morgan said. “We have been amazed by their generosity.”

Within the next 30 days, Second Harvest will be packing tens of thousands of food boxes that will be distributed by over 800 agencies to families in need across 24 counties.

For the past 15 years, WSOC-TV and Second Harvest have partnered to end area hunger through the 9 Food Drive. One unforeseen effect of the coronavirus has been significant changes to how food donations can be collected and distributed.

This year, the 9 Food Drive campaign is transitioning to a virtual food drive and will only accept online monetary donations. Funds donated will help the food bank purchase staple grocery items to continue packaging food boxes.

These boxes will help feed families whose children are missing school meals, seniors being asked to stay safely in their homes, those in need of food who are quarantined and employees in our community being affected by decreases in work hours. The number of struggling families continues to increase, along with their need for food.

Second Harvest has a donation program in place with different levels of giving. Donors can equate their monetary donation to what can be supplied by the food bank.

Here are some of the giving levels:

• Donating $7 will help provide a food backpack for children missing school meals. ​
• Donating $13 will help provide a food box of 12 to 13 healthy staple items.
• Donating $25 will help provide a seven-day nutritionally balanced food box.

Food boxes are filled with a variety of items such as peanut butter, cereal, fruit and vegetables. Each box varies, depending on what items the food bank can purchase.

Click here to support Second Harvest Food Bank and the 9 Food Drive.

© 2020 Cox Media Group