W. G. (Bill) Hefner VA Medical Center - Salisbury, NC

Salisbury VA staff assist in loading donations collected during the Feds Feed Families food drive to be delivered to Rowan Helping Ministries. Pictured: (left to right) Anthony Dawson, Interim Director; Dr. Greg Scott; Kevin Blanks; Kelley Miller; Allen Hughes, Rowan Helping Ministries Volunteer in background

August 24, 2012, marked the end of the summer’s “Feds Feed Families” 2012 food drive.  Salisbury VA Medical Center participated in order to provide this much needed service to our local community agencies.  Employees at the Salisbury campus and outpatient clinics in Charlotte, Hickory and Winston-Salem donated non-perishable foods and household items to help the facility reach their goal of 2,000 pounds.  In all, collections exceeded 5,000 pounds when the campaign ended.

Medical Center staff at the Salisbury campus collected a grand total of 3,750 pounds of donations.  There was one stand-out Service during the campaign that single handedly raised 3,200 pounds of the Medical Center’s grand total of non-perishable foods and household items – Integrated Fee/Non-VA Care Service.  Donations received at the Salisbury campus were delivered to Rowan Helping Ministries. 

Integrated Fee/Non-VA Care Service Chief, Kelley Miller created a friendly Service-wide competition between the Fee Supervisor, Tamara Monroe and the Nurse Manager, Melissa Zimmerman to “rally their troops.”  The competition, titled “Save The Supervisor,” was based upon the weight of donated of non-perishable food and household items.  As a result, the Service competed against each other, administrative staff vs. clinical staff,  to save their supervisor from a myriad of chores to perform including serving breakfast and lunch to the entire service. 

Each week of the competition brought more and more donations, but nothing could have predicted the amount to be brought in on the last day of the competition.  For a small Service of only 37 employees, the final feat demonstrated the dedication to Veterans and our community as a whole. On the final day of the challenge, the staff of Integrated Fee/Non-VA Care Service brought in an amazing 1,620 pounds of donations, which pushed the total donations to 3,200 pounds. 

Please join us in recognizing and congratulating Integrated Fee/Non-VA Care Service for their astounding response to the call for donations and their tremendous philanthropic efforts to assist the community during tough economic times. Special mention also goes to Deborah Cranfill, a pharmacist,  who works at the Winston Salem CBOC, who individually donated over 800 pounds. 

Job well done!!

    Check out the article published in The Salisbury Post on September 6, 2012:

                           http://www.salisburypost.com/News/VA-Medical-Center-food-drive-f

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