This past Friday, October 20, National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) staff packed up and readied itself for a big move. After five years on Pennsylvania Ave., NACD’s national office relocated across the Potomac River to Arlington, Virginia. NACD staff turned what could have been a stressful moving day into an opportunity to give back to the community that it works in through its first Day of Service.

Packaging food for delivery

Serving hot meals on a mobile food kitchen

President and CEO Peter Gleason championed NACD’s Day of Service as a way to involve staff in volunteer activity and to demonstrate to that the organization is dedicated to supporting and improving the lives of others. NACD spent time with several worthy local nonprofit organizations, including:

  • Martha’s Table, an organization that seeks to provide healthy meal and food programs for children and their families. For over 37 years, Martha’s Table has worked to support children, families, and neighbors by making healthy food and quality learning more accessible.
  • DC Central Kitchen, whose mission is to use food as a tool to strengthen bodies, empower minds, and build communities. This organization provides culinary training for jobless adults and then hires them to prepare 3 million meals annually for homeless shelters, schools, and nonprofits.
  • Capital Area Food Bank, an organization working to solver hunger, chronic malnourishment, heart disease, and obesity. It provides 540,000 people in and around the nation’s Capital access to healthy food annually.
  • Arlington Food Assistance Center, which obtains and distributes groceries directly and free of charge to those in Arlington who cannot afford groceries them.
  • Food & Friends, whose vision is to provide meal delivery to people with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses who have limited ability to provide nourishment for themselves. Their simple premise is that anyone can get sick and everyone can help.

Organizing food for a “market day” at an elementary school

One group of NACD volunteers reported back from Martha’s Table with this experience:

“Our crew of four baked about 230 muffins in one afternoon for our Day of Service assignment. Martha’s Table is a charity that has various aims, including introducing healthy eating to those who might not have access to traditional resources, such as the homeless. Their mobile soup kitchen, McKenna’s Wagon, provides meals daily to the homeless at various locations. The muffins we baked and packaged were destined to go on the truck Friday night as dessert for those that McKenna’s Wagon served. We had a lot of fun baking at Martha’s Table. We had a recipe for apple spice muffins and an aggressive timeline to meet! Everyone pitched in, bonded, and encouraged each other. It was a rewarding experience.”

Baking for a mobile soup kitchen

Do you know a deserving organization in the metropolitan Washington, DC area that could use volunteers in the future? Make your suggestion by leaving us a comment.