‘Serve with joy’: Volunteers fill thousands of food boxes for WNC during annual Sort-a-Rama

CHARLOTTE — Thousands of meals are ready to be served to families in need thanks to Second Harvest Food Bank and the effort of hundreds of volunteers Wednesday morning in Charlotte.

“You’ve gotta serve with joy,” said Lyna Alfaro, a volunteer with the Edward Jones team.

For Alfaro, it feels good giving back. She’s one of more than 800 volunteers who spend the morning packing 16,000 boxes of food for Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.

It’s an annual packing event called “Sort-a-Rama,” and many of the boxes this year will be distributed to families in Western North Carolina who are still recovering from Hurricane Helene.

SPECIAL SECTION >> Hurricane Helene stories

“It’s what drove me to come back,“ Alfaro said. ”Last year was my first year being a part of the Sort-a-Rama, and just a few days later, Helene hit Western North Carolina, and we were ready because of the boxes we packed. It’s cool to do something with a purpose."

Food Lion brought the most volunteers to the Charlotte Convention Center, and a group of us at Channel 9 helped them fill the boxes.

“To know this is going to serve those who need it the most is fulfilling for us,” said Pat Calhoun, a volunteer with Food Lion.

While some boxes will go to Western North Carolina, others will support mobile food pantries in Mecklenburg County. Inside each box is more than a dozen items, including rice and various proteins. Each box will go to one family, and it can feed them for about a week.

Second Harvest Food Bank CEO Kay Carter said, “1,800 of the boxes, which is a tractor-trailer load, will be going with us.”

Carter helped organize the event happening Thursday in Western North Carolina, and she says the community there still needs the help.

“We were out there twice last year, November and December, and we had huge crowds. This year, we felt let’s go back in September; it felt like the right time with one-year anniversary,” Carter said. “We just what everybody to remember they are still struggling.”

A Channel 9 crew will be traveling to Western North Carolina on Thursday to meet some of the people who will receive this food, and to hear their stories and challenges one year after Helene.

(VIDEO: Local food banks struggle as federal funding dwindles)