2014 Crop Drop @ Grace Lutheran Church
*Taken from the NWFL Daily News*
Some 400 volunteers cheered Saturday as a truck carrying 40,000 pounds of replacement sweet potatoes pulled into Grace Lutheran Church’s parking lot. They came none too soon for the 6th Annual Crop Drop Destin. At 5:30 p.m. Friday, organizers got a call that the original truck had broken down in Mississippi, David Saviola told the volunteers. The repairs weren’t going well and another truck couldn’t be found to haul the load. So Saviola prayed, and by 7 p.m. another truck was located with a similar load five hours closer. The driver agreed to bring it to Destin on his day off. Volunteers greeted him warmly after he pulled in. Then they got to work. They sorted the sweet potatoes the same way they did the cucumbers, watermelons and other produce earlier in the morning. All in all, about 80,000 pounds of produce was bagged up for local charities to distribute to 6,000 needy families from Panama City to Pensacola. “Roughly 20,000 people will be fed,” said Tara Hearn, community coordinator for Thrivent Financial’s Emerald Coast Group. “It’s our way of living generously and giving back.” Hearn has participated in Crop Drop Destin from the start. She said 30 churches, including the Church of Destin and Grace Lutheran, were working together to distribute the food. The program and the amount of produce distributed has “grown exponentially,” Hearn said. “Every year it gets a little bigger, with a few more churches, a few more people,” she said.
Read MoreSome 400 volunteers cheered Saturday as a truck carrying 40,000 pounds of replacement sweet potatoes pulled into Grace Lutheran Church’s parking lot. They came none too soon for the 6th Annual Crop Drop Destin. At 5:30 p.m. Friday, organizers got a call that the original truck had broken down in Mississippi, David Saviola told the volunteers. The repairs weren’t going well and another truck couldn’t be found to haul the load. So Saviola prayed, and by 7 p.m. another truck was located with a similar load five hours closer. The driver agreed to bring it to Destin on his day off. Volunteers greeted him warmly after he pulled in. Then they got to work. They sorted the sweet potatoes the same way they did the cucumbers, watermelons and other produce earlier in the morning. All in all, about 80,000 pounds of produce was bagged up for local charities to distribute to 6,000 needy families from Panama City to Pensacola. “Roughly 20,000 people will be fed,” said Tara Hearn, community coordinator for Thrivent Financial’s Emerald Coast Group. “It’s our way of living generously and giving back.” Hearn has participated in Crop Drop Destin from the start. She said 30 churches, including the Church of Destin and Grace Lutheran, were working together to distribute the food. The program and the amount of produce distributed has “grown exponentially,” Hearn said. “Every year it gets a little bigger, with a few more churches, a few more people,” she said.
