Help is on the way for families affected by Hurricane Ida.
“When Hurricane Ida hit down in Louisiana, we wanted to help,” said Jenn Gillispie with First Fruit Farms.
Over two dozen Maryland farms came together to donate more than 100,000 pounds of food.
“Everybody in farming, we always been about helping people in need,” Joe Barten-Felder, who is the Secretary of Agriculture and farmer.
First Fruit Farms in Freeland helped organize the effort. It’s a non-profit that donates all its food grown at the farm for disaster and hunger relief.
The farm partnered with a non-profit called Convoy of Hope. The organization is transporting the food to its volunteers already on the ground helping in disaster relief efforts.
“To send food to people that need it. It’s an awesome thing to be a part of,” Gillispie said.
More than 300 volunteers helped package about 80,000 pounds of food at First Fruit Farms, which served as the distribution hub.
“Produce, meat, milk, [and] cheese. All kinds of dairy products. All kinds of vegetable products,” Gillispie said the group is sending to help victims of the hurricane.
Some of the volunteers who helped package the food came from New Orleans and were impacted by the storm.
“To hear them talk about their family members that have literally just had their homes destroyed or taken away, it touches the heart, and it makes you want to act,” Gillispie said.
“Folks who live down there are true victims of what we can experience from the weather. And farmers know what it’s like to be victims of the weather and that’s why everybody comes together,” Barten-Felder said.
The food is expected to arrive in Louisiana on Wednesday.
“It’s pretty incredible and we only hope that the people who receive this food feel blessed by it,” Gillispie said.
