Church, Coach and Team Move 42,000 Pounds of Potatoes for 5,000 Families

Before most of Glen Burnie had poured its first cup of coffee, seventy volunteers were already in position. By mid morning Saturday, they had moved 42,000 pounds of fresh Maine potatoes — enough to feed more than 5,000 families across Maryland and Washington, D.C.

The effort was organized and supported by Glen Burnie United Methodist Church congregation, the local and District United Methodist Men, men for the Men of Integrity,  churches in the Harbor District and Glen Burnie High School Football team, which partnered with the Society of Saint Andrew, a national nonprofit that rescues surplus farm produce and redirects it to communities in need.

Eight hundred and forty fifty-pound bags (42,000 lbs) arrived on site, bound for pickup trucks and larger vehicles that had driven in from Anne Arundel, Calvert, and Baltimore counties, as well as the District of Columbia.

"Our hands and feet were literally being used to share Jesus' love."

Among the volunteers were an unlikely but fitting group of partners: the varsity football coach, Alec Lemon,  and players from Glen Burnie High School, who traded their Friday-night roles for work gloves and an early Saturday call time at 8:00 am.

"This is what community looks like," said one church member as bags moved steadily from pallet to truck bed. "These young men showed up and worked just as hard as anyone."

Coach Lemon, who brought several of his varsity players to the event, said the morning was a natural extension of lessons he tries to teach on the field. "Football teaches you to give everything for the person next to you," he said. "Today, the person next to them was a grandmother from the congregation. That's a lesson I want them to carry longer than any win."

In addition to the bulk distributions, volunteers hand-packaged 800 smaller seven-pound bags for residents who could not travel to the site. Those bags were then delivered directly to Glen Burnie senior apartment communities, as well as recipients in Severn, Annapolis and Oxon Hill.

Organizers said the senior deliveries required a separate coordinated effort, with volunteers driving routes throughout the region to ensure no one was left out.

The Society of Saint Andrew, founded in 1979, has gleaned more than one billion pounds of food from American farms since its founding and operates entirely through volunteer networks like the one assembled Saturday in Glen Burnie.

The Mission-Outreach Team said this is our fourth time for this annual event, citing the significant turnout and the speed with which the task was completed.

The morning's work was completed in less than two hours — a pace that surprised even the organizers. "We honestly weren't sure how long it would take," said one coordinator. "But once everyone got moving, it just happened. That's what seventy committed people can do."

Men, women, and youth from the Glen Burnie UMC congregation formed the core of the volunteer corps, joined by church members from the wider Glen Burnie UMC community. The mix of ages — from teenagers to retirees — drew comment from several participants who said it felt like an illustration of the congregation's diversity in action.

For the football players, several of whom have grown up in Anne Arundel County, the experience offered a view of their community that a practice field cannot provide. One player, asked what he was taking away from the morning, paused before answering: "I didn't know this many people needed help right here. That's something."

The Mission -Outreach Team framed the day in explicitly theological terms, describing the effort as a physical embodiment of their faith rather than simply a charitable act.

"Our hands and feet were literally being used to share Jesus' love," one leader said. "That's not a metaphor for us. That's what we came here to do."

The potatoes — grown in Maine and donated through the Society of Saint Andrew's gleaning network — arrived fresh and ready for immediate use, a practical detail that organizers emphasized. Unlike shelf-stable food bank staples, fresh produce carries an immediacy that both givers and recipients said they felt.

"These are real potatoes from a real farm," one volunteer said, holding up a bag before loading it into a truck bound for Northwest Washington DC. "Someone grew these. We're just making sure they get to someone who can use them."

By the time the last truck pulled out of the parking lot, the seventy volunteers had accomplished what few organizations manage: a logistical feat rooted entirely in the belief that a community's surplus belongs to its most vulnerable members.