FAIRBORN — The Fairborn Senior Center hosted its monthly food bank in partnership with the Dayton Food Bank on Tuesday, April 19.
“We’ve been doing this for five or six years,” said Fairborn Senior Center Executive Director Ellen Farthing. “We even weathered the pandemic.”
Farthing said that the monthly events, happening every third Tuesday of the month, include not only helping those in need with getting free food. The senior center also delivers food to those who are not able to leave the house.
Farthing estimated that the senior center provided food for 100 people.
“We partner with the Dayton Food Bank to bring the food here, and they’ve meanwhile been working with different grocery stores that donate the food,” Farthing said. “They also bring what we call ‘senior boxes’ for economically qualifying seniors over 55. All the rest of the food, anyone can have who comes. It’s been a really great partnership.”
Senior boxes, Farthing said, are typically stocked with various dry goods along with spaghetti sauce, canned tuna, and other basic staples. Applications for seniors over 55 are available through the Dayton Food Bank.
Anyone coming to the food bank set up as a mobile unit outside the senior center during their monthly events will be assisted by a guide who will help them choose food, pack the food appropriately, and will help carry the food to the attendee’s car.
“This is our way of making sure that people who need food get food,” Farthing said. “We have just about everything anyone would need: fruits, vegetables, meats. Today, it was chicken. There’s also milk, breads, and sweets. I saw one person with a bunch of bananas, which for a senior can be a lot. But they can take it and make baked goods out of it, too, and all sorts of things.”
Farthing also regularly sees at the food bank a young couple with two children who will walk all the way to the senior citizen, grab the good their family needs, and walk the mile back home with groceries in hand.
“We know that we’re helping them with their rough situation, and that’s exactly the reason we’re here doing what we do,” Farthing said.
“We go over all to so many different communities,” said Dayton Food Bank Mobile Pantry Manager Andy Macy. “Typically, areas that are underserved or don’t have a lot of their own food banks. So, Fairborn seemed like a perfect spot to bring our mobile food bank to.”
Macy, who studied in accounting in college before realizing in his brief career as an accountant that he didn’t care for the profession, has found his seven years with the Dayton Food Bank to be very enjoyable.
“I really like being able to help out the community however I can, and working with the food bank and the Fairborn Senior Center is one of many ways I can do that.”
