A Very Special Delivery for Thanksgiving
FALLSBURG, December 2020– Early on the morning of November 24, the cafeteria at Benjamin Cosor Elementary School (BCES) looked like the Mess Hall for a Marine battalion. It was jam-packed with breakfast and lunches of food, milk, and juice in boxes, coolers and crates ready for delivery to school children and families.
Because school was closing for the Thanksgiving break, cafeteria staff, with the help of custodians, had assembled enough food for four days—Tuesday through Friday. Cafeteria workers Cynthia May, Ken Geagley, Jr., and Karen Allan were among those wheeling heavy carts of food to several huge tables assembled outside the Cafeteria. Soon each table overflowed with boxes and coolers the labels Dolphins, Squirrel, Danny (names of bus routes or drivers that drove the routes).
But that was not all. A Single Bite, the non-profit established by Foster Supply Hospitality, was providing 24 families in FCSD with four days of hot prepared meals. FCSD had chosen the special families through its social workers and guidance department staffs. The meals were delivered to BCES by driver Alan Smith in a Rolling V van just prior to the arrival of his co-workers in the dozens of buses that started lining up at 8:30 a.m. to load up. Among the delicacies were roast turkey breast, sweet potatoes, green beans, corn bread and two different kinds of salsa.
Sims and Kirsten Foster founded A Single Bite “to teach why real food is important and to empower young people to care about the food they eat and where it comes from.” Through the assistance and coordination of Fallsburg Central Schools, other school districts and service agencies, like Rotary, Elks and Lions, the Fosters reached their milestone of distributing more than 50,000 servings of food to their neighbors in Sullivan County last week.
Dr. Aleta Lymon, Family & Community Liaison from FCSD, was the point person supervising the November 24 herculean effort. A Single Bite thanked Executive Chef Peter Yurosits, Executive Director Audrey Gorro, Program Manager Anastasia Ocheretina and the dozens of volunteers and donors that made their efforts possible.
Many people were tired by mid-morning as they cleaned up the BCES Cafeteria and removed all the pallets and debris from the loading area. And they were smiling because they were grateful for all the work that would bring a lot of smiles to faces of the children they serve.