Every day, before the sun is wholly lit, Channels Food Rescue bridges the wide but traversable gulf between available food and the hungry in Central PA. For 11 years, Channels has been collecting donated foods left over from the banquets, conventions and catered events, restaurants, supermarkets, and amusement parks in Central PA, and delivering them to the agencies and society’s invisible — the people in need. None of the recipients pay a single cent.

In 1989, Jean Beatty founded Channels because she had a moral objection to the thoughtless waste of precious food on which someone in the next town could survive. Starting with only one van and HersheyPark and seven other donors, she patterned Channels after the highly successful Philadelphia food rescue organization, Philabundance. Today, Channels has two trucks and a van, 70 donors, and 70 agencies they deliver to.

"Channels hopes to even the field," says Beatty, "by rescuing excess, prepared but unserved food that would otherwise be discarded, and delivering it to those agencies in need." Essentially, Channels is a modern-day Robin Hood, swiping what the ‘rich’ have too much of and giving it to those who have none. Except here the rich are willing and there is very little archery. The poor, however, are just as poor.

MODE Weekly wanted a personal insight into the Channels mission kept alive by the work of a few inglorious but extraordinary Samaritans. The reporter who had to wake up at 6:30 a.m., rubbing sharp, sleep nuggets from the corners of his eyes, would soon meet with people who do something so simple yet so amazing that he would have a bit more faith in humanity.

The sun peered over the Susquehanna as the reporter crossed into New Cumberland toward the Channels headquarters. After parking by the office near the center of town, he spotted a crisp, white Channels tee shirt in the parking lot, approached, and met the driver with which he would be riding: Adam Schrader. About 5’9" and medium build, Schrader exhibited cool nature in a ball cap and a few days of facial hair growth. A blue "WWJD" key lanyard hung from his relaxed jeans. After introductions, Schrader explained that he wore a new tee shirt especially for the day. Casual in speech and carriage, Schrader was instantly accessible. On the way into the office, Schrader’s ease of purpose was held in his swagger as he related a brief background of his time with Channels and the pride he feels in being the actual hand of goodwill. "It was like fate how I found this job," said Schrader, relating his fortune in stumbling into the Channels staff. "I was heading down the street to apply at Covenco [a vending-machine company] for the same job that Channels was looking for, but on the way, I bumped into Anne Twomey [then Project Coordinator]. She said, ‘You want a job with us?’ A year-plus later, I’m still here." And Schrader has found great satisfaction. "I have a sense of worth, because people would just throw this food away." The other driver, James Stevens, has been with Channels for more than two years. It must be the job’s gallant doctrine and sense of dignity that elicits this kind of dedication.

Channels now picks up over 55,000 pounds of donated food a month and reassigns it. The food reaches more than 110,000 area residents a year. And here are Adam Schrader and James Stevens who, through the most basic gesture of simply doing the task, are feeding masses of undernourished families and individuals.

Inside the humble workplace, Keo Oura Kounlavong, now Channels Project Coordinator, storied the reporter with her upright path of international social work that led her to Channels. A Politics and International Relations graduate from Ursinis College with her eyes on a career in diplomacy, Kounlavong studied and observed in the depressed nation of Northern Ireland just before interning in Washington, D.C. on the Angola Project, which is trying to end the civil war in the African nation. She then came to New Cumberland. When asked why she’d come all the way back to Central Pennsylvania, Kounlavong said, "I was always around food in the other places that I was helping and I thought this was an interesting concept: ‘Food Rescue’."

While Central PA has a number of wonderful food banks that store food for people to come and take what they need, Channels stores nothing. Food is delivered within hours after its picked up from the donor. And on the day of this visit, the hours were ticking by. Schrader double-checked his itinerary and was ready to begin.

A quick inspection of the Isuzu refrigerated truck and box doors, plus a reminder to the reporter to use his seat belt, and Channels was off in motion.

Schrader stopped first at the New Cumberland Giant Foods supermarket, a daily pick up. Keith, the Giant Warehouse manager, exchanged friendly ribbing with Schrader as he passed through the stockpiles, working in business questions about what donations are available. On the floor, Schrader engaged in small talk with bakers Jane and René, who replied in kind. Schrader overfilled a shopping cart with day-old baked goods in less-than-sturdy cardboard boxes, had a donation form filled out, and said his goodbyes on the way back to the truck, incurring one last ribbing from Keith. Schrader is obviously considered a member of the family. And it’s like that everywhere he goes.

The next pick up was in Hershey at the Milton Hershey School (MHS), a free private school started a century ago by the chocolate magnate for children in need. Once there, Schrader was again given and returned a friendly third-degree. Twenty-odd huge, five-gallon containers of frozen stews, pans of gourmet foods, and a half-ton of milk products were loaded onto the Channels truck. Even the reporter rolled his sleeves up. Schrader bemoaned the newly-gotten stain he had on his perfect shirt, then re-categorized the stain as proof of hard work. Schrader’s consistently easygoing cadence, however, made the work look effortless. Kind farewells, and off again.

The large bags of milk in the back of the truck jogged Schrader’s memory of "The Chocolate Milk Incident." Some months ago, a bag of chocolate milk popped and, since there wasn’t anything else in the truck, the milk sloshed about freely, running out of the drain holes of the truck bed. A trail of chocolate milk several miles long wound itself around Central Pennsylvania’s roads, leaving chocolate puddles at stoplights. Schrader checks all bags intensely now.

Across town, HersheyPark sets aside a thousand pounds of professionally prepared, frozen dishes for Channels. Reading the dates written in black marker on each dish, Schrader gauged which ones he could trust to be unspoiled. He put on a hooded parka and gloves. The freezer was immense and ice crystals hung from everything. Breath stayed cloudy for ten seconds. Schrader loaded half of the food reserved for him, left the coat and gloves on the hook, and off again.

It was 11:30 a.m. Nearly two tons of food and barely halfway done.

Schrader picked up 150 pounds of day old bagels from the Manhattan Bagel, a mile down Hershey Boulevard. The reporter was now a full-time assistant grunt, lifting each 50-pound bag with the rusty muscles of a writer. Off again.

Back in Harrisburg, the 7-Eleven on Progress Avenue donated two handbags of sandwiches and the Bagel Lovers on Linglestown Road gave Schrader some witty banter and a large Rubbermaid container of bagels.

The food for the day was now picked up. It needed delivering.

The Salvation Army off of Green Street in Harrisburg got first dibs. "No onion bagels," requested cook, Sandy Baer, who explained that, "they stink up the building." After a cursory bargaining session, Baer had George Morris, a 15-year SA volunteer, unload the pork and beef barbecue from HersheyPark, non-onion bagels from both bagel shops, milk from MHS, angel food cakes from Giant, and sandwiches from 7-Eleven: about 600 pounds of food. At least 500 people will not be hungry. Off again.

The Downtown Daily Bread in the Boyd building on South Street was given all of the huge containers of stews from MHS. The reporter broke a sweat. One thousand pounds of food: a week of fed people. "Hey!" Downtown Daily Bread’s "Kitchen Queen," Brenda Ervin teased. "Even the reporter’s working! Are you a permanent helper?" Off again.

The Central Allison Hill Community Center has a Kid’s Café that feeds and entertains children after school. It is one block away from a sign that warns drivers that they are in a neighborhood with a high volume of drug trafficking. A rose among thorns, as it were. The chocolate milk and the remaining pans of frozen dishes were unloaded. The Center’s Volunteer Director, Charlotte Tatum, said the chocolate milk gets the kids some kind of healthy vitamins. In some cases, the Center provides the only food these children will eat after school. This is a world that some of us know, a few understand, and the rest ignore. Channels is always there. Off again.

1:45 p.m.: Schrader still had three hours of goodwill to give, but the end of the reporter’s day had come. The drive back to the office was quietly satisfying. A bit of labor, a bit of travel, a lot of soothed souls.

Hundreds of people will live a more respectable, healthy life — if only for a day — because they had a free meal. Everyday, this happens. Even on this, the holiday of food. Channels, through the grassroots efforts of four people, is fighting hunger in South Central Pennsylvania even as you read. "Sometimes," said Beatty, "the holiday season masks the fact that all persons do not share in the bounty of this rich country." Indeed.