Volunteer Spotlight: Dave Petrillo

Volunteer Spotlight: Dave Petrillo

It takes a dedicated team of staff, volunteers, and member agencies to distribute over 5.8 million pounds of food throughout Anne Arundel County to our neighbors in need. We offer a million thanks to the hundreds of changemakers volunteering in our warehouse and our office each year.

One of those changemakers is Dave Petrillo, who has always been willing to step in to do whatever needs to be done in our warehouse. Dave also helped implement one of our major programs addressing youth and family hunger, the Backpack Buddies Program. We simply could not make the same impact in our community without dedicated volunteers like Dave!

“I’ve been volunteering my whole life,” said Dave Petrillo. “This is part of what I do. I enjoy giving back to the community.”

For the past eight years, Dave has volunteered in almost every warehouse position, ensuring the seamless flow of food and basic necessity items to our member agencies. Clocking in an average of eight hours a week, Dave has helped our organization as a Driver and an Assistant Driver, picking up food donations from hundreds of locations throughout our County. He has also helped on the sorting line, boxing up food donations that are distributed daily to our partner agencies. Just this week, he worked with volunteer Rick Smoak to go through a long list of food pick-ups that had been backed up due to weather and holiday closures.

Dave’s service to our county extends beyond AACFB’s warehouse. He also volunteers as the Vice President with one of our member agencies, Services from the Heart, which implements three Backpack Buddies program locations serving 106 elementary students. The Backpack Buddies Program is a partnership with eight member agencies that provide bags of food to over 700 students receiving free and reduced lunches on the weekends and holidays throughout Anne Arundel County. Since the Anne Arundel County Food Bank provides supplemental food for this program, each program location also works to collect or purchase food for the schools that they serve.

Services from the Heart helps kids at Hilltop Elementary, Eastport Elementary, and Belle Grove Elementary have food on the weekends through the Backpack Buddies program. Dave volunteers as much as eight hours each week for this program which includes delivering food from the Anne Arundel County Food Bank to their location, shopping for additional food, packing food bags, to delivering the food bags to the schools.

“I see how dedicated and involved the schools are to helping kids in need have food on the weekend,” said Dave. “I’m so impressed with their office staff. They’re so appreciative of the Backpack Buddies Program too.”

It takes a community of dedicated individuals to help fight food insecurity throughout our County. Dave is a shining example of putting his compassion into action and helping ensure everyone in Anne Arundel County has enough to eat.

We are in search of more changemakers like Dave to help us move our mission forward. Please fill out our volunteer interest form to become an AACFB volunteer. We are especially in need of volunteer drivers who can help pick up donations throughout Anne Arundel County. Please also consider supporting our Backpack Buddies Program so that we can continue to purchase nutritious food to ensure students in our county have access to healthy food over the weekends and holiday breaks.