Nash Finch Supplies ‘Helping Hand’ Volunteers
Nearly 375 Nash Finch Co. employees from its Edina, Minn., headquarters will lend a helping hand for a second year in a row to Twin Cities nonprofit organizations.
Through the second-annual Helping Hands in the Community Day, Nash Finch will provide more than 2,300 hours of volunteer time to 16 participating nonprofit organizations.
Nash Finch encourages its employees to give back to the communities in which they live and work and for the second year is giving its associates time to volunteer while on the clock in support of this particular event. Associates will be volunteering at agencies funded by the NFC Foundation, Nash Finch’s charitable giving organization.
“At Nash Finch, we strongly believe in giving back to those in need in our communities,” said Alec Covington, Nash Finch president and CEO. “Helping Hands in the Community Day encourages even more of our associates to support many worthy nonprofit organizations working hard every day to help the less fortunate. The associate response to our call to volunteer is gratifying and I am pleased to report that this year we have a 25 percent increase in associate volunteers versus last year.”
Organizations benefiting from the event include NFC Foundation grant recipients, as well as organizations that have benefited from book donations through Nash Finch’s Feeding Imagination educational program. Since 2001, the NFC Foundation has donated more than $3.38 million to nonprofits, focusing its efforts largely on hunger and shelter needs. Feeding Imagination has provided more than 140,234 reading books to children, and the organizations that serve them, since its inception in 2006.
“It’s exciting to have such a dramatic increase in associate volunteers,” said Gary Spinazze, chairman of the NFC Foundation. “Volunteering provides a great opportunity for our associates to make a difference, and our associates really want to help out. This year we will be packing meals, stocking food shelves, painting and landscaping, just to name a few of the activities.”
Nash-Finch’s core food distribution business serves independent retailers and military commissaries in 36 states, the District of Columbia, Europe, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Azores and Egypt. The company also owns and operates a base of retail stores, primarily supermarkets under the Econofoods, Family Thrift Center, Avanza, Family Fresh Market and Sun Mart trade names.