Hyster Company, a lift truck designer and manufacturer based in Greenville, N.C. donated on Dec. 20 a new S40FTS lift truck to aid wildfire relief. The truck will be used in a Miramar, Calif. warehouse owned by the State of California and run by Adventist Community Services, a nonprofit volunteer organization.
The Hyster truck will help fuel Southern California's recovery from the devastating wildfires that caused over $1 billion in damage, and forced the evacuation of 1 million people in October.
Charlene Sargent, pacific regional disaster response coordinator for Adventist Community Services Disaster Response, says that the Hyster lift truck is a tremendous asset to the facility. "Besides our volunteers and computers, our fork lift is the most valuable thing that we have," Sargent said. "And because the Hyster truck was donated and not rented, we can use it for future events wherever and whenever it is needed."
The Hyster lift truck was shipped to a multi-agency warehouse, where it will be used to handle other donations from across the country. Because the majority of the donations are palletized, the lift truck saves both time and effort of volunteers working in the California warehouse. The truck can also move materials that are too large for pallet jacks or other smaller material handling equipment
In other good deeds, both Wal-Mart and ConAgra Foods donated food to America's Second Harvest. While Wal-Mart donated 50 truckloads of food and grocery products to supply 3 million meals, ConAgra Foods contributed 35 truckloads of product, valued at $1 million, and issued a $200,000 matching grant program on Dec. 19.
America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest domestic hunger relief organization, has projected an immediate food shortage of 11.7 million meals. Through its network of more than 200 member food banks, America's Second Harvest annually provides assistance to more than 25 million people in need, including more than 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each year, America's Second Harvest secures and distributes more than 2 billion pounds of food and grocery products to support feeding programs at approximately 50,000 local charitable agencies.
Donations to America's Second Harvest can be made online at http://www.secondharvest.org.
