Volunteer Network Feeds Thousands

Every Friday evening at 6 Scott Feger and his family rendezvous at the Hampshire View Baptist Church and begin loading the church van with coolers. While most families are nestling into their couches and beginning their weekends, the Fegers are heading from their home in suburban Silver Spring, Maryland toward the city of Washington, where they will spend much of the night gathering food donations from local groceries to give to the needy.
The Fegers are volunteer members of the District-based Celestial Manna, a charitable organization that collects food donations that are nearing or past their sell-by dates and redistributing them to the disadvantaged.
“Our number one goal is to save food that would otherwise end up in the dumpster and give it to struggling families,” says Scott, a 20-year Navy veteran.
A deeply religious man who frequently quotes scripture, Scott dedicates many hours a week to volunteer work for Celestial Manna. On this particular Friday night he is joined by his two teenage sons Caleb and Joshua and 19 year-old family friend Jeremy Karkhuff.
At the group’s first stop, a specialty supermarket in Arlington, Scott strolls down the aisles, greeting each employee by name. He makes his way towards the storage room, pushing the doors open as naturally as if he works here.
The food being donated may be past its designated shelf life, but in most cases it is still perfectly fine to eat.
According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the sell-by date is the earliest time at which the product may begin to spoil, and is entirely a concern of quality rather than health.
“We don’t donate anything we wouldn’t buy ourselves,” says one store manager.
Particularly in many specialty stores, who pride themselves on providing top quality products, food may be removed from the shelf two to three days before its sell-by date in order to make room for newer shipments. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that U.S. supermarkets throw out $2,300 per store worth of out-of-date food every day, most of which is still consumable.
Scott points out several loaves of bread baked that very morning that have been removed in order to free shelf space for the next day’s stock.
The donations gathered by Scott and his crew will be stored back at the church, where the food will be made available to those who need it.
The target beneficiaries of Celestial Manna are working-class and immigrant families whose economic hardships often force them to scrimp on groceries.
“When funds get tight for a working family, food is usually one of the first items they’ll cut back on,” explains president and founder Charlie Mann. “We supplement them the best we can.”
So while many government programs are there to help the most destitute, Celestial Manna is dedicated to helping the working poor, agrees Scott.
“We provide help to those that fall through the safety net,” he says.
The Fegers have their gleaning work down to an efficient system.
Joshua and Caleb push grocery carts full of donations out to Jeremy, who methodically packs them into designated coolers and stacks them in the van.
For a trio of teenage boys spending their Friday night volunteering for a church, there is a noticeable lack of whining. The boys enthusiastically go about their work, cracking jokes througout. Jeremy pauses from his stacking to do a summersault in the street.
“My kids and their friends have really stepped up,” says Scott. He says the boys willingly find time between social events and jobs to contribute. “They have unbelievable work ethics and maturity for their ages. There’s no way I could do this without them.”
The members of the crew pack back into the now-cramped vehicle and head to their next location. Though his church provides Scott with the van and gas money, Celestial Manna, which has no operating expenses or paid staff, does not cover the cost incurred by its volunteers.
“The expenses fall on each individual,” says Mann. “Our volunteers are committing their own money and time to do this.”
Mann founded Celestial Manna in 1986, initially out of his own needs.
“I wasn’t making much money at the time and my family was in need,” he explains. “I started regularly going in to a local store and asking for the food they were going to throw away.”
He began providing for a steadily increasing number of family and friends, an expansion that eventually led to the founding of Celetial Manna. The organization has steadily expanded its reach in the past decade and a half, now serving some 6,000 disadvantaged individuals with the help of about 80 volunteers.
Finished with their pickups, the tired group makes the hour-long trek north back to Silver Spring, where they organize and store their bounty in the church. By the time they’ve unloaded the last cooler it is past 1 AM.
“Its hard work, but its worth its,” says Scott, who will rise early the next morning to repeat the process again. “I like helping people, and I want to pass that on to my kids.”