Liberty University makes large food donation, meets community needs during COVID-19 crisis

On Friday, Liberty University partnered with Sodexo, Liberty’s dining services provider, to donate over $20,000 worth of food to Lynchburg-area charities.

Becki Falwell, wife of Liberty President Jerry Falwell, made the generous decision last week during an executive meeting in which administrators decided to move residential courses online due to COVID-19 laws. Because the university had already purchased enough food for 15,000 residential students, the administration saw the surplus as an opportunity to serve the surrounding community.

“We’re sitting on all this food that we bought prior to Spring Break for the return of the students,” said Duke Davis, district manager of Sodexo. “We wanted to make sure we were doing our part with the community and donating to people who could use it instead of the food going bad in our coolers or sitting on our shelves.”

Massive amounts of dried goods, produce, meats, dairy products, and other foods, were hauled from the Food Court at Reber-Thomas, Liberty’s main dining hall, to the Salvation Army, Lynchburg Daily Bread, and Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

Davis said the bulk of the donation went to the Salvation Army, which will coordinate with other groups in Lynchburg to disperse it to families in need throughout the area.

“This is something we would do here at Liberty,” Davis said. “We have a great partnership with the university, and we want to make sure we continue that.”

Liberty’s courteous influence is stretching beyond food during the coronavirus pandemic. The university recently donated 800 keyring flash drives to Amherst County Public Schools so they can download lessons and mail the flash drives to their students who don’t have Internet access. All Virginia public schools have been closed through the end of the academic year, and school systems are sending materials home digitally or by mail.

Amherst County High School Principal Derrick Brown said the school system ordered flash drives several weeks ago, but the shipment is stuck in Hong Kong because of the coronavirus outbreak. He reached out to Liberty and, less than two hours later, his problem was solved.

“We are happy to help our fellow educators,” said Dr. Rob Ritz, Liberty’s chief financial officer. “With help from Laura Hamilton at Lynchburg Beacon of Hope, we received a request from Principal Derrick Brown for a need to provide flash drives. In about an hour and a half, we had extra flash drives from in storage and contacted him back.”

“This was really generous and tremendously helpful,” Brown said. “Amherst County Public Schools is very appreciative of the donation of 800 flash drives that Liberty University donated last week. Because of (Liberty’s) donation, we were able to provide three weeks of learning opportunities to our students who do not have Internet access.”

Read more on the flash drive donation from WDBJ.