Mary introduced the speaker, Lynn Hy, from the CNY Food Bank. Lynn has worked at the food bank for the past 15 years as the Chief Development Officer. She discussed a little bit of the history behind the food bank which was started in 1985 and celebrated its 40th Anniversary this year. The food bank was the last one to be formed out of the ten food banks in the state of New York and it currenty serves 11 counties in the Central New York area. The role of food banks is to take a large scale amount of food and deliver them to individual food pantries, soup kitchens, etc. in the area and the food is delivered by a fleet of vehicles they maintain. The food that is supplied to these pantries comes from donated foods and foods purchased straight from the manufacturer with some of the donated food even coming from the local farms in the area. Lynn explained Abbott Farms donated 41 totes of apples this year that were picked by volunteers. The food bank is funded by the government and the New York Department of Health but it varies in amount they receive from year to year. The local Skaneateles Food Pantry feeds 105 houses a month with 50,000 lbs of food which shows how much it is needed in this area. Also, last Tuesday, the food bank surpassed its record by delivering 190,000 lbs of food in the county of Onondaga!  Lynn closed out her speech by saying that we should "all come together to help our neighbors by helping the food pantries." If you are able too, consider providing support to the food bank or local food pantries by either dontating your time with voluntering or monetarily via donations.