Food For Thought gets a major gift from The Seaside Style®: Kendall Andrews, e-commerce director; Ann Grelling Foster, director of sales and pperation; Tiffanie Nelson, founder and executive director of Food For Thought; Makenzie Carter, director of brand development; and Erica Pierce, CEO of Seaside Associated Stores. Photo by Poor Truman Creative
A community partner with Food For Thought, an outreach program which works to fight child hunger, The Seaside Style® recently made a major donation to the charity.
Seaside’s signature retail company’s $25,000 donation will be used at Food For Thought’s new distribution center in DeFuniak Springs. The money goes toward the installation of air-condition and electrical work in the warehouse. Other contributors were Ryan Harp Construction, Tammy and Jim Pierce, Joey Katz and the Walton County Sheriff’s Department.
“We are ordering more of each individual food item than any local grocery store,” says Tiffanie Nelson, founder and executive director of Food For Thought Outreach. “This new facility will allow us to continue to grow, continue to feed more children and families, and work toward breaking the cycle of food insecurity in our communities. Without it, we simply cannot sustain any more growth and we never want to turn away a child in need. That’s why continue community support is so crucial.”
The distribution center is being renovated and will be the third location for Food For Thought, adding to the locations in Santa Rosa Beach and Destin, when it opens for services in December 2018.
“Running a business in South Walton, where everything is almost perfect, makes it is easy to forget that there is so much need in our community,” says Erica Gibson-Pierce, general manager of Seaside Associated Stores. “The health and well-being of every child is important for our future. Our company, The Seaside Style, supports this outreach in many different aspects to make a difference in the community.”
The Food For Thought program serves more than one million food items to 31 schools in Walton and Okaloosa counties, providing backpacks filled with food for 3,000 students each week. For more information, such as donation locations, pantry items needed and opportunities to volunteer, visit fftfl.org.