Family sets up food pantries and makes 1,500 sandwiches a week to feed people in need amid the pandemic
Be the Good: This family creates mini food pantries and makes thousands of sandwiches a week to help feed the less fortunate.
- A family of six provides food for people in need with the slogan: “Take what you need. Leave what you can.”
- The Marchands launched the “Be the Good Project,” sending care packages and sandwiches to the less fortunate during the pandemic.
- The family also helps other non-profits that provide food and resources to families in need.
Amber and Sterling Marchand, together with their four children Foster, Quinn, Ford, and Milo, have found an amazing way to contribute to their community. For the last few months, the happy family has been helping people in need by collecting and donating food to different non-profits and food pantries.
The Marchands are now providing “free little food pantries” to various neighborhoods, allowing other families to pick up the food they need or leave behind the one they can. Their slogan says: “Take what you need. Leave what you can.”
As Newsner reports, the family started their initiative after they stumbled upon the harrowing fact that, during the pandemic, the food insecurity amongst people has drastically increased. Having a lot of free time on their hands after the school year was over, they decided to step in and find a way to help. Initially, they set up a small food drive right in front of their Alexandra, Virginia home. The couple didn’t hesitate to involve their friendly neighbors and asked them to donate canned goods and non-perishable food to get the campaign going.
Talking to People, Amber commented:
“It just exploded! The box just kept filling and filling.”
Inspired by their success, the family launched the “Be the Good Project.”
The Marchands were amazed by the enormous amounts of support they received, so they decided to step up their game. That’s how they set up the non-profit called “Be the Good project.” In only several months, they managed to collect and donate over 32,000 pounds of food.
What’s more, they have also been helping other associations, including “Martha’s Table.” With the help of friends and neighbors, the family of six delivered around 52,000 sandwiches to the non-profit. In an interview with Good Morning America, the 39-year-old mother-of-four said:
“We send the instructions [for sandwich making], people drop the sandwiches off at our house and we refrigerate them. We now we bring about 1,500 sandwiches a week to Martha’s Table, and that’s been since July.”
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Amber added:
“Our laundry room is now mini fridge land, we store the nonperishables in our living room and we have two additional full-size fridges that we’ve added to our garage. It has definitely infiltrated [our house], but the neat part is our children, who are fairly young, really do understand what’s happening. Our youngest, who is 3, will say, ‘Is this food for us or food for neighbors?'”
The little ones have been the heart of the charitable campaign.
According to their mother, the initiative teaches them “to think and care about other people.”
The family’s latest project is the “free little food pantries” which they install in different Alexandria neighborhoods. They also organize care packages containing rice, oatmeal, eggs, beans, canned fruits and vegetables, and notes of encouragement.
Amber explained:
“We realized there were a lot of barriers for people who couldn’t reach a food pantry. [The pantries] are a nice go-between because they are 24/7 and people don’t have to navigate certain hours or going inside a building, and people can also safely donate food outdoors.”
Now, the Marchands are working on expanding their donations and help as many people as they can. Realizing that the need for food is not going to go away, they hope their project would continue to inspire others to help one another.
