The Pounding

The 23rd annual day of giving to Florence Food Share

By In Photos

by Will Yurman

Ray Plumery with the Florence Unitarian Universalist Fellowship drops off 17 bags of potatoes at The 23rd annual Pounding.

Cindy Wobbe started The Pounding food donation for Florence Food Share 23 years ago. She collected 1283 pounds of food that first year. At this year’s event on Saturday, November 18, she called out, “Ok folks, 17 minutes in and we’re at 2061 pounds.”

The event is named to honor her Pentecostal roots. The community would deliver goods by the pound to help a family in need.

At Saturday’s event, people handed bags out their car window, walked up with a cart full of canned goods, potatoes, frozen turkeys and more or shopped at Grocery Outlet and wheeled out a shopping cart of food for the cause.

Colin Morgan, executive director of Food Share said the event is particularly important near Thanksgiving. Next week will be their busiest of the year he predicted. He expects they will serve over 300 families. A busy week during the rest of the year might see just 40 to 60 by comparison.

Just over an hour in, Wobbe announced a new total. 8492 pounds of food donated.

The need at Food Share is at a record high, he said. They saw a 49% increase in demand in fiscal year 2022-23 over the previous year. And the past few months have broken new records.

Food Share volunteer Micheline Perry, 71, was in charge of the entrance to Grocery Outlet, handing out a list of requested food items. “I love the door. The door is mine,” the Food Share volunteer said.
Donated food by the pound is organized into boxes before being brought to Food Share.
Cindy Wobbe started the annual Pounding donation 23 years ago. Just after 9/11, she said, fewer people were giving to smaller charities. She decided to fill the void by creating The Pounding.
A pallet of donated items is loaded onto the Habitat for Humanity truck by Lyle Bettelyoun, left, Tom Faber, bottom, and Jack Hibbs.
Donations this year were matched by two anonymous donors. Peace Health supported the pounding with a $5,000 contribution.
A team of volunteers took in donations, sorted them into boxes and loaded the Habitat truck which then delivered the goods to the Food Share warehouse.
Food Share’s executive director, Colin Morgan, helps load the truck on Saturday. Today’s donations will help Food Share deliver food to more than 300 families next week, he said.
Bart Mealer wheels a cart of frozen turkeys to the Food Share freezers at The 23rd annual Pounding. Mealer is Food Share’s gardener.

By day’s end, The 23rd Pounding collected 18,184 pounds of food and over $11,000 in donations.

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Support

Correction: An earlier version of a photo caption incorrectly said that Peace Health matched the donations. Two anonymous donors matched donations. Peace Health supported the
pounding with a $5,000 contribution.

2 Comments
  1. Ann Dowdy November 19, 2023

    Congratulations to the team of volunteers. Great job!

    Reply
  2. Kathy November 19, 2023

    Fabulous opportunity to help our neighbors. Thanks, Cindy Wobbe for doing this.

    Reply

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