After 20 years, Harvest Hope is ready for its next visionary

How do I thank a statewide community for 20 years of encouraging and supporting our efforts to feed people in need across South Carolina?

I begin by realizing without the help of literally thousands of volunteers, donors, staff members and partner agencies, I wouldn’t be in a position to both write a farewell letter and share my excitement about the future.

Serving as CEO of Harvest Hope Food Bank for those 20 years has been one of the greatest experiences of my professional life.

We’ve grown substantially in size and service ability. Over the past two decades, Our Harvest Hope team has served more than 360 million — yes, 360 million — meals across 20 counties.

But after 20 years, it’s time for me to pass to the torch to the next visionary.

RELATED: Longtime director leaving multi-county S Carolina food bank

With the help of so many, we have created large food bank operations in Columbia, Florence and Greenville. We deploy mobile food pantries, operate child feeding programs and provide pack-to-feed boxes for our military and law enforcement, while feeding approximately 38,000 people a week.

We do all of this with the help of partner agencies. When I started in 1998, we had 75; today there are more than 500.

The Harvest Hope team led our state’s disaster food service response during the 1,000-year flood of 2015 and Hurricane Matthew of 2016. Those back-to-back disasters tested us, and our team of volunteers, donors, staff and partners proved to be stronger than any of us imaged. Together we distributed food equal to more than 2.5 million meals during those two events alone.

Hunger does not discriminate. It can hit any one of us at any time. Our challenge is to be not only ready to serve, but willing to serve.

It’s been my pleasure to serve Harvest Hope and the people of South Carolina for the past two decades.

My heartfelt appreciation to all of you for what you’ve done to help. I conclude my service today, and I’m looking forward to watching Harvest Hope continue to carry this very important mission forward.

Please continue to support this great organization.

The State publishes a cross section of the letters we receive from South Carolinians in order to provide a forum for our community and also to allow our community to get a good look at itself, for good or bad. The letters represent the views of the letter writers, not necessarily of The State.