How Walmart is Helping Community Partner Open Hands Turn Surplus into Supper

It’s 8:31 a.m. on a chilly Friday morning in February and Melissa Kurtzmiller is strolling the Severna Park Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s parking lot, just off Ritchie Highway in Pasadena. She is preparing to pick up another round of unsold, but perfectly good food from local grocery stores to distribute to neighbors later than morning.

Even though it is Friday the 13th, Melissa feels lucky to be standing next to a brand-new 24-foot vehicle.

“We’re just getting Larry Boy here warmed up,” beamed Melissa, the Executive Director of Open Hands, a non-profit focused on assisting neighbors in need with access to food and household items.

Stemming from the children’s TV Show Veggie Tales, “Larry Boy” is the affectionate name Melissa’s daughter gave to Open Hands’ newly acquired refrigerated truck, made possible by a generous $750,000 grant from Feeding America and Walmart.

Open Hands is one of six Maryland Food Bank partners who received a refrigerated truck and other equipment to help rescue more food, while reducing waste, what’s often called retail recovery.

Making Retail Recovery Even More Impactful

“I’ve been involved in retail recovery for over a decade at Open Hands. It’s actually our ‘bread and butter,’ where we get 95% of our food,” Melissa said. “We didn’t really have the ability to get things that required refrigeration, so this truck means more fresh food from different partners,” she continued.

It also means that Melissa and her volunteers no longer have to rely on their personal vehicles. “I’ll never forget the smell that a donation of papayas left behind, but the most memorable pickup in my minivan was so many turkey tenderloins that the weight made the back of the van scrape against the tires!”

Jocelyn, one of Open Hands’ volunteers, made it clear how far the organization has come, and how the truck has helped their journey.

“Melissa literally started in her basement with boxes. She used to use her own personal vehicle, with coolers and blankets. We made it work with whatever we had, but now, we’re grateful to have this beautiful truck!”

The funding from Walmart has been instrumental in Open Hands’ ability to keep up with local need and consistently offer access to nutritious food in Pasadena, a community that more than 34,000 Marylanders call home.

“We serve anywhere from 250-275 neighbors during each of our four weekly distributions (Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays), averaging about 1,100-1,200 per week, or nearly 5,000 each month,” shared Melissa.

And Melissa is busy. In between checking in on the volunteers setting up racks, shelves, and other containers as part of the distribution team, and others filling those containers with shelf-stable goods, Melissa is planning the most efficient route to pick-up from Walmart and five other retailers. Volunteers Missy and Bill H. will accompany her on this day’s retail recovery journey.

Melissa shared that she’d been a stay-at-home mom, and volunteered during her kids’ events, but now that they’re all grown and out of the house, she was looking for something different.

“I like my time to be spent usefully, so I help. I’ve actually learned a lot about food waste. So now, a lot of stuff that would be normally thrown out, we collect and give to those who need assistance,” said volunteer Missy.

Making Retail Recovery Easier on Staff & Volunteers

After backing into the loading dock behind Walmart‘s Quarterfield Road location, Melissa remarked on how specific aspects of the grant make Open Hands’ work even smoother.

“The electric pallet jack allows us to accept things that we couldn’t before—heavy things like meat or water—and God bless the decision to make an electric lift gate mandatory. We don’t have a dock at Open Hands and would have to unload manually otherwise!”

During this visit, Open Hands recovered a half-truck’s worth of fresh salad kits and bagged produce, clementines, red peppers, grapes, fruit snacks, granola bars, bananas, and more.

Stops at Sam’s Club, Costco, Aldi, Giant, and Imperfect Foods meant that neighbors attending the day’s distribution event would have the opportunity to choose foods like whole pineapples, Honeycrisp apples, dates, single serve oatmeal cups, cooking sauces, bakery items, and even half gallons of cold milk!

Thanks to this incredible support from Walmart, Open Hands is part of a larger effort to increase the amount of these types of donated food. In addition to helping reduce environmental impact, our community partners are able to get fresh food, without the challenges of storage, to neighbors faster than ever before.

Making Retail Recovery Better for Neighbors

Neighbors are really noticing how things are changing at Open Hands. Hannah P. who was kind enough to share her thoughts while perusing the selection of fresh produce:

“They’ve worked really hard, and they’ve gotten these grants. And since the grants, I’ve really seen the quality go up. This is unbelievable, I don’t know, like $100 worth of groceries, and that just means a lot to my family on a weekly basis. And it’s healthy stuff, things that would be some of the more expensive items at the grocery store!”

Dana N. found Open Hands at one of the most challenging points in her life.

“Costs have gone astronomically high, we have three small children, and my husband’s disabled, so financially, a lot of things fall on my shoulders right now, and I can’t make it work,” she said.

“So, this has been a godsend. We’re able to get food on a regular basis: fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, milk, eggs, all sorts of things. There are pantry items. Sometimes they even have diapers, which is great if you’re in a pinch,” Dana continued.

“Today, I was able to get bananas, apples, milk, and enough meat to last until next week, plus a chocolate bar for my husband. It doesn’t sound like a whole lot when I say it like that, but I feel good about the things we got!”

When she was informed that Walmart had donated much of the food, Dana was stunned: “I had no idea that that many people were interested in sharing their foods instead of focusing on profit. Especially Walmart, that really shocked me. I think I might shop a little bit more there because they’re helping our community.”

Dana found out about Open Hands from a co-worker who volunteers and happily pays it forward by spreading the word about their services to others who may be in need: “It’s everybody who is struggling right now, and I tell people this place is like a little grace period.”

Partnerships like the one between Walmart, Open Hands, and the Maryland Food Bank mean our network can better serve the 1 in 3 Marylanders facing hunger.

They help places like Open Hands meet the need in their neighborhood, while helping keep food out of local landfills.
Find out more about the Maryland Food Bank acquires and distributes more than 43 million meals annually.