On August 24, 2024 during Party for a Purpose, an annual fundraising event for GO Pantry; Complete Forklift Repair was honored as Community Partner of the Year. Attendees heard from many GO Pantry members on the impact Complete Forklift has had on their operations. They also heard from members of Complete Forklift Repair on what it means to them to participate in GO Pantry’s mission.
Complete Forklift Repair owner, Chris Dove, graciously accepted the honor and about how he first discovered GO Pantry, “I would like to thank the GO Pantry team for their community service and honoring us as their community partner of the year. We are very humbled and grateful for their recognition. I learned about GO Pantry through a business colleague. After meeting Laura and Beth and learning about the organization, what their mission was, how it started, and the important role it played within our community I had to stay involved. The teams’ energy, enthusiasm, and spirit is simply infectious. The needs they fill inside our community are so important to so many families. And we truly don’t know how many peoples’ lives are affected by food insecurity. The family that may not need help today could be the one that needs help tomorrow. And we must be there for our community neighbors.”
Chris went on to talk about where he saw needs in GO Pantry’s operations, “They were moving into their new warehouse and had so many needs to make it operational. I thought to myself how are they going to utilize their space, store the much needed products, and recover it from the rack. I immediately began looking at our inventory. We found them a quality forklift to fill that need, provided a battery charger, and made improvements to their receiving docks. Then we stood behind them by providing them with maintenance services so they could stay 100 percent operational.”
Operations Manager, Alicia Herrmann, spoke about GO Pantry’s impact for children in the community, “Due to rising costs, parents can be focused on providing the best care they can to their child and still fall short on necessities. Help from places like GO Pantry can assist parents providing care for their children and not giving up as they work toward a brighter future for their children. Ensuring children in the community have access to food regularly allows them grow to up healthy and without the worry of where their next meal comes from, and just focus on being a kid. So, it’s extremely important to have organizations like GO Pantry so that no child goes hungry.”
Chris spoke about his past and what it means to be a part of something so large, “I grew up in Wallins Creek, KY. A small Appalachian town in Harlan County. A few miles up the road from me lived Mike Howard, most knew him by the name Mountain Santa. I remember the smiles he brought to so many children’s faces and the food baskets he provided to so many families at Christmas. He was a great community servant and leader. I believe all good servants make great leaders. Whenever I’m around the GO Pantry team and their Leader Servants. I know that I’m witnessing something greater, something purposeful, something inspirational, and it tells me this mission cannot and must not fail. I feel part of something special and more meaningful. I feel like I’m more of a complete person. It is spiritually fulfilling for me. Those smiles and personally fulfilling purpose, that’s why this is so important! I know GO Pantry makes the lives of so many families a little easier and their smiles a little brighter.”
Alicia encouraged participation in GO Pantry’s mission, “The more active participation by our community members to nurture the next generation, the stronger our community will be. Every time we donate or volunteer, we are essentially feeding our community’s future.”
Chris echoed these sentiments stating,” Growing up in a small town everyone knew the importance of community, of lifting each other up and that we were much stronger together. Its important that we all do our part to help one another. Maybe it’s a canned food, maybe you help build GO Pantry Boxes, maybe you can provide much needed funding, or maybe its as simple as lifting GO Pantry up in prayer. We all have a part we can play and ways we can help. We are all a community of neighbors.
Go Pantry started in a basement in 2012 after the founders learned about a small group of students at their kids’ school that were food insecure. The organization quickly outgrew space after space before finally moving into their warehouse in Florence in 2019. Now the organization serves about 1200 kids with weekend “Go Bags” and “Go Boxes” that provide a week worth of food when school is on break. If you would like to donate to Go Pantry’s mission you can visit www.gopantry.org/donate/.
News stories are submitted by member companies. Publication of a story does not indicate an endorsement of any product, event, or company by MHEDA.