As students across East Tennessee head back to the classroom, hundreds of employees at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have been hard at work helping ensure that, when the first Friday arrives, children in need will head home with food for the weekend.
This summer, more than 200 ORNL employees volunteered over four days to pack 8,000 weekend food bags for Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee’s Food for Kids program. Each bag includes nutritious foods like soup, pasta, fruit, cereal bars and shelf-stable milk, helping bridge the gap between Friday afternoon and Monday morning. The bags help ensure children who are experiencing food insecurity return to school each Monday ready to learn instead of worrying about where their next meal will come from.
ORNL and Second Harvest have partnered for more than 20 years to fight hunger across East Tennessee through employee giving, food drives and volunteer service. The annual food-packing event — part of ORNL Gives, the laboratory’s employee giving and volunteer campaign — has become one of the partnership’s signature traditions and ORNL’s largest hands-on volunteer event.
The partnership reflects ORNL’s longstanding commitment to serving the communities where its employees live and work, demonstrating that the laboratory’s impact extends beyond scientific discovery.
“One of the things we value most about our partnership with ORNL is that employees give not only financially, but also through their time,” said Kristi Rule, chief development officer for Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee. “Volunteers make it possible for us to reach more children and families throughout East Tennessee.”
During the event, conversations flowed across the assembly lines as researchers, engineers, administrative professionals, interns, facilities personnel and business staff worked shoulder to shoulder. Volunteers unpacked bulk food shipments, filled bags, assembled boxes and wrapped pallets destined for local schools, each task helping ensure children will have food waiting when the school week ends.
What began in 2021 as an effort to pack 2,000 weekend food bags has grown dramatically into a tradition that ultimately translates into 24,000 Fridays when a child will head home with food for the weekend. According to Second Harvest, the event has packed more than a full tractor trailer load of food over the past six years, producing enough bags to ensure 750 students do not face weekend hunger over an entire school year.
“ORNL’s 7,000 employees are committed to making a difference, whether through scientific discovery or through service to our community,” said Associate Laboratory Director Cynthia Jenks. “Seeing employees from every part of the laboratory come together to help local children is a wonderful reminder that our impact extends far beyond the laboratory campus. Every volunteer helps make a real difference for East Tennessee families.”
Today, nearly 214,000 East Tennesseans experience food insecurity. Through Food for Kids, Second Harvest partners with schools across the region to discreetly provide weekend food bags to students who need them most.
For the educators who see the program’s impact firsthand, the importance of that work is impossible to miss.
“Thank you for providing this service to schools so we can better care for our most vulnerable kids,” said a local East Tennessee teacher. “The work you do matters. Children, when they become adults, will never forget the sting of being hungry. But they also never forget the warmth of someone caring enough to feed them.”
ORNL Gives is Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s annual employee campaign supporting nonprofit organizations through charitable giving and volunteer service. Each year, employees contribute time, talent and financial support to organizations that strengthen communities throughout East Tennessee.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science. – Emily Tomlin
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