BY LINDA BENTLEY | OCTOBER 23, 2013
Tatum Ranch Golf Club adopts Foothills Food Bank as its charity
Pam DiPietro (r), executive director of the Foothills Food Bank (FFB), provided this group of women from Tatum Ranch Golf Club a little history and a tour of the facility as they provided FFB with a donation of $1,100 and 693 pounds of food.
Photo by Linda Bentley
CAVE CREEK – On Monday, a group of women from Tatum Ranch Golf Club (TRGC) presented Foothills Food Bank (FFB) with a donation of $1,100 and 693 pounds of food raised during their third annual car show.
TRGC holds a car show in its parking lot each year while the golf course is closed for over-seeding and rather than charging a fee to participate or to attend, people were asked to bring a food donation.
The cash was raised in a 50/50 raffle, whereas half the cash goes to the winning raffle ticket holder while the other half goes to their adopted charity.
FFB has been the recipient of TRGC car show’s proceeds for the past two years.
This year they had approximately 140 registered vehicles and around 300 spectators.
FFB Executive Director Pam DiPietro, always grateful for donations, provided the women with a tour and the history of the food bank, which began in 1988 by local churches.
The food bank serves people in need as far north as Black Canyon City, I-17 to the west, Pinnacle Peak Road to the south and Rio Verde to the east.
DiPietro gave the group a tour of FFB’s new facility and said several markets donate to the food bank on a regular schedule, including Albertson’s, Fry’s, Safeway, Target and Bashas’, which she said has been donating to the food bank for the entire 25 years.
The food bank currently serves 350 families per month, a large increase over the 40 or so families it served when DiPietro started 12 years ago.
She said when the food bank began it was to serve the primarily Hispanic families in the area, which made up 80 percent of its customers. She said that has since flipped and Hispanics only make up 20 percent of their patrons.
