Press Release

A Clean Food Fight
Local companies compete to support Frederick’s Largest Soup Kitchen

Frederick, MD, 9 Dec 2008 — Frederick’s Chase Bank and CitiMortgage employees went head-to-head in an all-out food fight to benefit the Frederick Rescue Mission November 3-7, with Citi delivering the top performance. A trophy was presented to Citi’s Site Lead, Robert Kojac, and the Citi Cares employee volunteer team on November 19.

This food fight isn’t about throwing food, however; it’s about collecting food. Each year for the past five years the local branches of these international companies have come together to support the Frederick Rescue Mission, Frederick’s largest provider of hot meals to the homeless.

"When the Mission announced earlier in the fall that their food pantry was bare, our employees wanted to help,” said Ellen Prete, CitiMortgage's Community Relations Manager. “To maximize the results of our food drive, we reached out to our corporate neighbor to have a good natured ‘Food Fight’ to restock the Mission's shelves."

The companies each hosted a competitive food drive to see which company could bring in the most non-perishable food items to donate to the Mission. This year’s fight brought in over 2800 non-perishable food items, as well as $950 in cash contributions.

"It was great to partner again with Citi on the Food Drive," commented Eileen May, Frederick Center Manager and site leader for J.P. Morgan Chase. "Although they took the trophy this year, it was awesome to see two competing companies come together to help the community for a good cause."

Contributions were used to help fill the Frederick Rescue Mission’s 317 Thanksgiving food boxes they gave out to the community, as well as to aid in the distribution of emergency food boxes, which feeds a family of 4 for three to five days. The Mission gives out over 150 of these food boxes each month.

The Frederick Rescue Mission: Bringing Hope to Frederick since 1964.