2025 Schuylkill County Celebration of Community & Hope

Helping Harvest Fresh Food Bank held its 2nd annual Celebration of Community and Hope in Schuylkill County on April 24 at Mountain Valley Golf Course in Barnesville.

The event raised funds for Helping Harvest in support of its mission to feed the hungry. Sponsors included Lehigh Valley Health Network, Mrs. T’s Pierogies and over 20 additional Schuylkill County business sponsors.

Speakers included Jay Worrall, President Helping Harvest; Anne Gober, District Manager Maternal & Family Health Services (WIC) and Captain Betty Ellen Barrett – Pastor, Salvation Army Pottsville who provided the invocation.

In his speech, Jay outlined the expansion of Helping Harvest’s services in Schuylkill County over the past five years, noting that the value of food distributed by Helping Harvest in the county has increased by 278%. He also shared that Helping Harvest has increased the number of mobile markets in the county from two to 11 and more than tripled the number of weekender food bags distributed to pre- and elementary school students in that time period. He also shared how the recently opened Helping Harvest Community Kitchen, located in Reading, will benefit Schuylkill County communities—most notably by providing heat-and-eat ready meals for seniors.

Jay concluded with a charge to those gathered, “Hunger is a solvable problem. It really is. Let’s work together to make sure no child, no parent, no senior—no one—goes hungry in Schuylkill County.”

Helping Harvest, the leading provider of food to families in Schuylkill County, has provided services to the county for 39 years. Last year, Helping Harvest supplied $5.3 million (2.7 million lbs.) of nutritious food to Schuylkill County charitable food programs. The Senior Food Box Program distributed almost 208k lbs. of food to lower-income seniors at 41 sites in Schuylkill County. The Weekender Program, which provides a bag of easy-to-prepare meals and snacks for students experiencing food insecurity to eat over the weekend, distributed over 45K bags at 21 sites in Schuylkill County.

Thank you to the sponsors, attendees and staff who made this a memorable night!

Check out more photos from the event.