Trussville Chamber to hold food drive to benefit T.E.A.M

From Trussville Tribune Staff Reports

TRUSSVILLE – The Trussville Area Chamber of Commerce will kick off its annual “Love Your Neighbor” food drive in conjunction with Valentine’s Day on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. This community event will be held at the First Methodist Church of Trussville parking lot.

Trussville Ecumenical Assistive Ministry, otherwise known as T.E.A.M., is dedicated to helping those in need of food, clothing and essentials for living.

Collection points for donations will be placed throughout the city. A press release by the chamber said that the food drive will be a “drive-through” event.

“We try to make it easy for people in our ‘drive-through world’ to donate, so on that Saturday, people can actually drive into the parking lot, drop off their non-perishable items to volunteers, and then drive on out,” said TACC Executive Director Diane Poole in a press release. “They don’t even have to get out of their cars.”

The chamber’s press release said that the goal of this year’s event is to gather enough non-perishable items to help T.E.A.M. provide food until the fall.

“For the past seven years, we’ve used the Valentine’s Day theme of love to remind people to ‘love their neighbor’ and to help those in need,” said T.E.A.M. volunteer Louise Jensen. “Many people think of helping others during the holidays but they sometimes forget that some people need help all during the year.  We hope this food drive will bring an awareness to donate these items all year long.”

Area churches participating are: Clear Branch United Methodist Church, Deerfoot Baptist Church, First Baptist Church Trussville, First Methodist Church of Trussville, Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Faith Lutheran Church, and Cahaba Springs Presbyterian Church, and Holy Infant of Prague Catholic Church.

Donations particularly needed are: personal hygiene items, cooking oil, flour, corn meal, sugar, canned meat and fish, dried beans, cereal, breakfast food, peanut butter, jelly, saltines and mac and cheese.

Companies have contributed donations, including Independence Place, a faith-based agency dedicated to meet social and recreational needs of adults, who will staple informational flyers to food bags.

Locations where donations can be dropped off include the Trussville Area Chamber of Commerce,

Bryant Bank, BB&T and T.E.A.M. which is located at 88 Cedar Lane in Trussville.  All locations will take donations Monday to Friday at 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the week.

Most of the churches participating in the drive will also take donations on Sunday, Feb. 12 and Sunday, Feb. 19.

T.E.A.M. maintains a Facebook page and can be reached at 205-661-5039.

For more information on the Trussville Area Chamber of Commerce, visit www.trussvillechamber.com, or call 205-655-7535.