If you have been around the Charleston region for any amount of time, you probably have seen our Union Mission box trucks driving around picking up food donations from local businesses and other organizations. What you haven’t seen in the last year, however, was our large semi truck headed out to more distant locations to pick up larger donations of food and other items. The reason is our semi ceased to be roadworthy. It croaked. It laid down. It surrendered its last mile. To repair the drive train issues would have been tens of thousands of dollars. The rusted frame, however, could not be repaired. Replacing that vehicle was going to take a substantial investment that we were not ready to shoulder.
Fortunately, last fall, Jason Qunitrell, President and CEO of Union Mission was speaking with one of the Gordon Food representatives (Gordon supplies us with food from time to time) and the subject of the truck came up. Dale Tate, the Director of Transportation at Gordon Foods, immediately came up with an idea. He was pretty certain they could come up with a semi from their fleet to donate to Union Mission. The proverbial and actual wheels started turning.
“I was surprised when they said, ‘Hey, we are working on getting a truck for you all’”, Jason says. “I was blown away that they were going to not only give us one of their trucks but take the truck through their mechanical inspection process and fix or replace anything that needed repaired prior to
sending it to us.”
All of this excitement came to a crescendo on March 31st in the parking lot of Union Mission. The semi truck was delivered and presented to Jason and the facilities team at Union Mission. Several local news agencies showed up to document the exciting event as well as representatives from the
Union Mission Board of Directors, local churches, and area food banks and pantries that receive food from Union Mission.
Mark Kubasak, Sales Manager at Gordon Foods explained “At Gordon Food Service, it’s our heart to serve. To pay forward for those less fortunate and in need. It was an easy decision to make to support Union Mission and that outreach and footprint they cover.”
“This truck will not only allow us to collect donations in areas we have reached before,” says Jason, “it will also allow us to go into neighboring states where larger donations of food are available. The fact that we can now transport as many as 40 skids of food in one trip makes those opportunities
much more achievable.”
On behalf of the staff and board members at Union Mission, we want to offer a very heartfelt thanks to the people at Gordon Foods who made this donation possible. More people in need will be fed due to this generous contribution.
