Earlier this month, she received a call at the Ford transmission plant where she works. Her supervisor was standing right next to her, and she answered anyway. The call came from someone in a Hamilton church who wanted to gather donations for the pantry.
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Benson is the founder and director of New Miami’s Village Food Pantry. She was the subject of a Journal-News article on Nov. 12, profiling her volunteer organization’s efforts to serve people in one of Butler County’s poorest communities.
Last week, Benson received another unexpected phone call after the Journal-News article was published. It led to a $12,000 donation, which Benson received this week. She cried when she got the check.
Then, she took a selfie with her volunteers.
“Overwhelmed,” Benson said. “We have got a lot of responses (from the article).”
Benson was born and raised in New Miami. Her childhood home is just down the street from the pantry.
She did not know the donor. Benson said the woman called after the article was published and wanted to know more about the food pantry. The woman was impressed with how many people the pantry serves, Benson said.
The organization runs completely on donations, and Benson sometimes orders eight tons of food from her partners. The director said this donation cover expenses for three months.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
The Village Food Pantry is notable because it is a drive-thru, and it gridlocks traffic every Wednesday in New Miami. It’s also notable because the completely volunteer-run organization served 395 families on a Wednesday earlier this month.
Some people wait 2 hours to get food Benson and her volunteers pass out.
How to help
Village Food Pantry and many other Ohio food pantries order their stock from Shared Harvest, a Fairfield-based food bank that distributes bulk and wholesale items to smaller food pantries. A worldwide food shortage has made that job considerably harder for Shared Harvest.
To give money to support Shared Harvest, go online to journal-news.com/foodrelief.
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