Long before many of us pour our first cup of coffee, HCCM volunteers are already hard at work.
While most of the community is still waking up, they are loading trucks, making pickups at local grocery stores, unloading pallets of food, sorting fresh produce, stocking shelves, and preparing for the hundreds of families who will arrive later that day.
It's not glamorous work. It can be hot, cold, heavy, and fast paced.
Yet these volunteers show up week after week because they know every box they unload and every shelf they stock will help feed a neighbor.
In 2025, HCCM volunteers donated 33,473 hours of service to make sure local families had access to the food and resources they needed. Those hours represent thousands of moments when someone chose to show up, lend a hand, and make a difference.
What they're doing is more than moving boxes. They're rescuing food and restoring hope.
Each day, HCCM partners with local grocery stores and food retailers to recover fresh, nutritious food that is still perfectly good but can no longer be sold. Instead of ending up in a landfill, that food begins a different journey, one that leads to the tables of local families.
Fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, bread, meat, and other nutritious foods are carefully inspected before becoming part of our Food Pantry, Community Cupboard, and Fresh Food For All distributions.
Because of food rescue and the generosity of our community, HCCM distributed 1,207,738 pounds of food in 2025, helping provide groceries and resources to 42,746 families throughout our community.
For many families, these fresh foods make all the difference. Parents can prepare healthier meals. Children have fresh fruit in their lunchboxes. Seniors living on fixed incomes can stretch their grocery budgets without sacrificing nutrition.
Food rescue also allows HCCM to be good stewards of every donated dollar. By recovering quality food that would otherwise be discarded, we can invest more resources into programs that help families move toward stability.
None of this would happen without the volunteers who begin their day long before sunrise, or the generous grocery partners who choose to donate rather than throw food away.
Every crate unloaded. Every shelf stocked. Every truck emptied. Every bag packed.
Together, they make sure good food reaches people instead of landfills, and hope reaches families instead of hunger.
That is what food rescue looks like.
