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Jennifer recently spent time with Mindy Spicer capturing the important work she does every day to help feed people who are hungry.
The Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia distributed over 15 million pounds of food from July, 2010 through the end of June, 2011. One-third of that food was donated by restaurants, food service distributors and grocery stores through the Foodbank’s Food Rescue Program.
Mindy Spicer is one of several drivers employed by the Foodbank. Every day, she visits retail stores such as Walmart, Kroger, Sams Club, Farm Fresh, Walgreens, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Sysco, a food service distributor. She travels to these Food Rescue partners throughout the South Hampton Road region on a weekly basis.
 Mindy picks up fresh fruits and vegetables as well as dairy products, meats, deli items, bread and baked goods that are still edible but are not saleable. She will then deliver some of that food to a Foodbank partner agency such as the Union Mission, Salvation Army, Judeo Christian Center and others. The remainder of the food goes back to the Foodbank Warehouse and is distributed to other Foodbank Partner Agencies.
Mindy starts her day by leaving her home near Moyock, North Carolina, at 6:10 am to get to work on time at the Foodbank located in Norfolk at 7:00 a.m. January will mark six years of working as a truck driver and as a sorting room supervisor. She grabs the keys to her truck, which was purchased six months ago by a grant provided by Walmart. She adds some pallets, a dolly and two hand trucks, one motorized and one with a scale built-in.
On this day, Spicer is on the road at 8:00 a.m. driving from the Foodbank’s headquarters, to her first stop, the Walmart located on Tidewater Drive. She talks a little about herself. Her father was in the U.S. Navy so she lived in many countries growing up and calls Greece her favorite country. “I lived there for four years starting from when I was 10 years old,” Spicer says. “That was a great time because I could really appreciate every thing.”
Her favorite Greek dish is souvlaki and she makes a mean tzatziki. “The Greek food products you find in the frozen food section of the grocery store do not taste as good as mine. They don’t have enough cucumber in them. I also use lots of garlic in mine,” she says.
Spicer gushes over her truck. “I love, love my new truck,” she says. “In the old truck, I had to put the dolly in the front seat with me after deliveries because there wasn’t enough room in the back with all of the food that was collected.”
At today’s Food Rescue pickups, she will need all the space she has and more. She knocks on the backdoor to the Walmart receiving area. Waiting for her is a pallet of fresh fruits and vegetables and boxes of bread, cookies and cakes. In total, she picks up 785 pounds of food including three Halloween cakes.
Her next stop is the Kroger supermarket located on East Little Creek Road. On her way there, she stops at a red light next to Interstate 64. To the left, a man stands by the exit ramp, asking passing cars for some spare change. His camp lies under the interstate, a sleeping bag and blanket.
“I hate seeing stuff like that, especially while driving a Foodbank truck,” Spicer says. “When I see people who need help, I like to give them the phone numbers to the Foodbank and other agencies that can help them.”
Her journey continues to the front of the store where she picks up four food boxes that customers have purchased. The boxes weigh between 16 and 17 pounds, cost $10.95 and contain various grocery items. She gets several boxes of cookies and crackers and continues her trip.
She drives on to the Walmart Neighborhood Market located on East Little Creek Road where she collects more bread and baked goods. Spicer then goes to the Walmart on Military Highway. It initially appears to be a light load of fruit and more bread but the meat department manager stops her and tells her he has some meat for her. He comes back with 18 large boxes of frozen chicken, beef and turkeys. With a little maneuvering and a lot of sweat, Spicer manages to stuff the 4,500 pounds of food into the truck. “We are going to have to go back to the Foodbank because I still have a few more stops left and have no more space,” she says.
She returns to the Foodbank just after 11:00 a.m. and quickly unloads the meat into the freezer where it will be stored until it is distributed to agency partners. She unloads some baked goods as well and is back on the road to Lynnhaven Road in Virginia Beach for more pick ups.
As she drives, she talks a little more about herself. She has two children, a daughter named Cheyenne who is 16 and her son Chance who is 14. She has been married for 17 years to Lonnie, a crane operator. “I still love him. It was love at first sight,” Spicer says. “When I saw him, I told my friend I was going to marry him.”
She also loves to garden and takes photographs in her spare time. Spicer says her favorite pictures that she has taken are of her son wrestling and her daughter doing the high jump. She often cheers in vain for her Carolina Panthers and is in a fantasy football league as the Foodbank Lady.
At the Walmart on Lynnhaven Road, Receiving Associate Pam Condon greets Spicer affectionately. “Mindy’s great. She’s a hard worker. I really enjoy working with her,” Condon says
By 12:15 p.m., Spicer loads another 1,100 pounds of food into her truck and stops for lunch at the Happy Buffet where she gets a box of food from the hibachi grill and buffet to go. Sitting in the parking lot, she looks across the street to the shopping center and spots a Barnes and Noble, one of her favorite stores. “I love books. Cookbooks, how-to books and trashy romance novels,” she said. “I believe I’m a natural at anything until proven wrong. If I can read it in a book, I can do it. I rebuilt a carburetor using a book.”
By 2:00 p.m., Spicer has made all of her pick ups and arrives at the Judeo Christian Outreach Center in Virginia Beach. There she delivers 976 pounds of bread and baked goods for their distribution to people in need. Spicer returns to the Foodbank by 2:45 p.m. Her day took her over 62 miles between Norfolk and Virginia Beach and she picked up 7,885 pounds of food. In a typical day, she collects between 7,000 and 15,000 pounds of food.
She parks her truck at the loading dock and checks in with her supervisor, Bob Galewski. Spicer says, “I really enjoy my job. I get to meet some interesting people every day and I know I’m helping someone.”
For more information on how you can help the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia feed people who are hungry, please call 757-627-6599 or www.foodbankonline.org
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