When was the last time you were truly starving? Sure, we often say,

oh man, I am so hungry. But when was the last time you were actually on the verge

of starvation? For many, food insecurity is a real thing. It is defined as when

people don't have enough to eat and don't know where their next meal will come

from. It's estimated that 47 million people in the U .S. alone, including 14 million

children, experience food insecurity every year. 47 million people in the United

States. It's hard to wrap your head around that. Let's try to make it a little

more palatable to where we live. In 2022, in Sussex County alone, 32 ,050 individuals

were food insecure. That's 13 .3 % of the total population. We know we can't solve

the problem, but we also know that we can make a difference. But we need your

help. It's time for 2 .5 in 2025. This November and December,

we have set a goal to collect 2 .5 tons. That's 5 ,000 pounds of food,

and we need your help. We've partnered with two local organizations who will be able

to distribute the food that is collected, the Milton Community Food Pantry, and the

Shepard's Office in Georgetown. 2 .5 in 2025. Let's go.

This is the U .S. The Pros Answer podcast. Do you have questions about an upcoming

exterior contracting project? We've got answers. Welcome to the U .S. The Pros Answer

podcast. Hey, welcome to the U .S. The Pros Answer podcast.

is completely unedited. But it's also special because we are deviating from our

normal MO, our normal mode of programming, where we usually answer one of your

exterior home remodeling questions. And we are co -opting today's show to introduce to

you something that we are excited about, we are passionate about. And to help me

with today's conversation, I have invited pro exteriors marketing.

it going? It's going great. How are you, Cole? I'm doing pretty well. So just to

give people a peek behind the curtain, we had scheduled this show to begin live at

11 a .m. Eastern Standard Time. 11 o 'clock came and went. I checked our Facebook

page and YouTube channel and nothing was happening. I realized I had programmed

things incorrectly. So things are off to a really good start anyway let's start with

some some banter some small talk what is the weather like there in milton today oh

gosh it's been pretty gross the past couple of days so it's misting and it's cold

and windy it doesn't really look like it's raining outside but then when you go in

this ripple yeah audience so uh about a year or so ago my family and i moved to

northern kentucky and so i'm always interested to find out what the weather is like

there in southern delaware i actually believe it or not pulled up some weather

cameras on uh the coast tv website the other day and was able to see the waves

crashing down at rehobith and yeah It looks pretty nasty. It is sunny and like 65

degrees here in northern Kentucky. Well, way to rub it in our face, Cole.

All right. But weather and small talk is not what we're here to talk about today.

Spoiler alert. We're here to talk about Pro Exteriors annual food drive. Kara,

you and I have both been part of pro exteriors for the last year plus.

And I think in that time, we've caught the vision from Aaron,

our boss, the owner and president

of the company. And we understand the importance of giving back to the community

that we work in every day. So I was wondering if you could share with us. We talk

a lot about the community pro pledge, but sometimes I think we forget what it is.

So I was wondering if you could just share with us what the mission of pro

exteriors community pro pledge is. Yeah, absolutely. Actually, it's right on our

website. So if you guys ever forget or interested in learning more about the

community pro pledge, it's right on askproexteriors .com. And I'll read you a little

blurb from our Community Pro Pledge page. At Pro Exteriors,

we embrace a steadfast commitment to our local communities nestled within the

picturesque landscape of the Del Marva Peninsula. Through our initiative, the Community

Pro Pledge, we commit to foster enduring connections, enhance livelihoods, and enrich

the fabric of our neighborhoods. With unwavering dedication, we strive to empower,

uplift and support the diverse tapestry of individuals and family within our service

area. By actively engaging in philanthropic,

that's a... Philanthropic, that's... I didn't know that's in that paragraph.

Endeavors, volunteerism, and collaborative partnerships. We aim to cultivate environments

where everyone thrives. Together, let us embark on a journey of meaningful impact

ensuring that every corner of the Damavra Peninsula flourishes with compassion,

resilience, and opportunity. And you can give Cole credit for writing that because I

don't know so many vocabulary words. I apologize for giving you about 30 seconds

notice before we went live that I was going to ask you to read that. And I got

to be honest, I forgot that philanthropic was in there.

But the gist of that is

many of us that work at pro exteriors are from the area that we serve every day.

So Aaron is a Sussex County boy.

Carrie, you grew up in Sussex County, right? I did. Yes. In fact, I think of our

team, yeah, is from southern Delaware, the eastern shore of Maryland. I might be one

of the only outliers in that. But I grew to love that area while I lived there.

And Aaron is just instilled in all of us that without the community where we live,

pro exteriors does not exist. And so we all want to leave the area better than

when we found it. In fact, the tagline for the whole pledge is building a stronger

Domarva together. And so today I want to focus on the together part because this is

not a solo effort. The annual food drive that Pro Exteriors does does not do it

without many partners. So let's just start at the beginning, get some details out of

the way. Kara, when is the drive taking place this year? Yeah, we're starting a

little earlier than we did last year. So the drive will run from November 1st to

December 31st. Yeah, so it's the middle of October now. We haven't even hit

Halloween. We still have Thanksgiving to go, but we realized last year that the goal

that was set even last year, which is slightly less than this year,

So 2 .5 means 2 .5 tons of food, which roughly translate to about 5 ,000 pounds of

food. And so last year we did 2 .4 in 2024. So just keeping up with the years as

they go by. Yeah, I think 23 was the first year that we did the food drive.

And this is all at the leadership of Aaron Hey, it's year 2022 .3.

Let's do 2 .3 tons of food. I don't know if he thought through that long term, but

we're going for it. Because at some point, it's going to be, we're going to have

truckloads of food, which will just be awesome. But, okay, so the dates, we know

November 1st through October 31st. We know what 2 .5 and 2025 means,

what are we're going to be doing with the food? Because we don't have a need for

it, you know, within our small staff necessarily. Who's going to be benefiting from

the donations this year? Yeah. So at the end of the drive, we will load everything

up and organize and index it. And we will drop it off to the Milton Community Food

Pantry and the Shepherd's Office in Georgetown. So split that all those donations as

evenly as we possibly can and hand them out to the pantry and the shepherd's office

and they work on distributing that food from there yeah so last year i think was

the first year that we had done it like this where we kind of split donations

right um yeah so the milton community food pantry it's right in the name,

it's right here where we are based in Milton. And we do a ton of work in

Georgetown and I believe the guy's name is Jim. Yep,

Jim Martin. Jim Martin. Yeah, so they're an awesome organization helping people, not

just around holiday times where people are already in the giving spirit, but they're

helping out every day of the year. And so this will hopefully just lighten their

load a little bit. Okay, so we know the dates are November 1st through December

31st. We know that 2 .5 and 2025 means we have set a goal to collect 2 .5 tons or

5 ,000 pounds of food. We know that this year,

just like last year, the Milton Community Food Pantry and the Shepard's Office in

Georgetown are going to be the recipients. All right. Now,

a call to action of sorts. We said that we're going to focus on the together part

of building, oh my goodness, building a stronger, Delmarva together. How can people

get involved this year? Could you walk us through that? Yeah.

So there's a ton of options for you to get involved and you'll find them all on

our website. So, of course, the most obvious one would be finding us somewhere in

our office, finding an exterior specialist in their truck anywhere, and dropping off

a food donation directly to them. And you'll be able to see that all on our

website where the drop -off locations are as we add them throughout the year. You

could offer a monetary donation, which goes straight to our budget for buying these

bulk foods from a store like BJ or Costco's. And then,

of course, you could always share the word, share our episode, share our posts, let

your friends know, really just getting the word out there that the food drive is

going on. And hopefully somebody on your timeline will see that. Yeah, so Last year,

and this has kind of been the MO,

Aaron is not a fan of not reaching goals that are set, like in a good way.

He's like, you know, if we set a goal, we're going to reach it. And so if

donations end up coming up shy of the 2 .5 tons, chances are we're going to do

what we can to close the gap, but we don't have a specific budget.

We don't have a surplus of funds that are just like, all right, well, we're just

going to go out and buy thousands of dollars worth of food, right? So if people

donate, if they're like, I can't get to the grocery store, it's going to be hard

for me to transport a bunch of canned goods. Yeah, you can call our office. You

can click the button right there on the website and either mail in a check,

and you can be assured that the money is going directly to the food that's

purchased, which will then be delivered to the Milton Community Food Pantry and the

Shepard's office.

What kind of food are we talking about here? I think most of us have participated

in a food drive before but could you just give us here i'm even going to pull up

the donation list just list off some of what uh people can donate you can read

right from this list if you won't do if you can see it i don't know there's no

vocabulary words on this um yeah uh we've all participated in a food drive before

uh no items that are going to get smushed easily or or expire within a week.

You want the non -perishable items and things that require very little to prepare.

For example, like a macaroni and cheese, you want to get the one that just needs

water, not milk and eggs and butter or whatever. Canned meat is great,

pasta sauce, peanut butter is great, things along those lines.

All right. So let's

say somebody does a normal grocery shopping. They remember the food drive,

but they don't remember what food items they need to get or what is acceptable.

I want to throw up a QR code right now. So if you are watching,

you can grab your phone, if you're watching on a computer, maybe take a screenshot,

but that'll take you directly to the Food Drive web page. And if you click on

Donate Food, there will take you to another page that gives you the donation list.

So you can actually take that with you to the grocery store, and then you can

actually find a donation site, drop it off beginning November 1st. Kara,

what happens if somebody, for whatever reason, can't get to a donation site?

What then? Yeah, you are more than welcome to give us a call. Again, visit our

website, submit a form. We'll come pick up the donations. Just let us know about

this general size of your donation if you're leaving an Amazon box or if you're

leaving a whole palette. We'll come pick it up. Cool. All right.

I would say the biggest need as we are recording this today is that we just need

to find places that are willing to be a collection site. Would you agree with that?

Yep. That's a huge part of what we are needing as of today. All right. So you've

been spearheading this initiative. In fact, if somebody fills out the form on the

website, you're the one that receives the message saying, hey, I'd like to be a

collection site. Could you walk us through what that process looks like, like the

actual process of becoming a site, but then also what it looks like to be a

donation site? Yeah, so you can, if you're interested in being a collection site,

anybody could submit the form on our website, send us an email, give us a call at

the office. Really all it requires of your local business is to have a spot for

the donation box and to hand over your business hours to us so we can put it on

our website. But other than that, we'll handle picking up all the donations,

promoting it on our social media and our website. So if you're a local business,

you get a little bit more foot traffic, hopefully.

Yeah, and I think you probably heard more than I did last year from the collection

sites, but it was super easy, right? And did you hear any stories from anybody last

year about what it meant to them? I didn't prep you for this question, so if the

answer is no, that's okay?

Yeah, I think anybody who I talked to last year about just having the donation box.

It was only a positive experience. You get to chat with people who are coming in.

And it really makes you feel good knowing that you're doing something to give back.

Yeah, and I know that Aaron's heart and the heart of pro exteriors is to,

again, to not just do good as a business, but to do good as a community and to

encourage other organizations to come together. So this really is, this is a team

effort. This is a collaborative effort. All right. So I just want to recap a little

bit. So we've talked about that the food drive begins November 1st. It'll go through

the end of the year.

2 .5 and 2025 means that we've set a goal to collect 2 .5 tons or 5 ,000 pounds of

non -perishable food items. It's benefiting the Milton Community Food Pantry and the

Shepherds office in Georgetown. You shared with us the three different ways people

can get involved so they can either just straight up donate food, their business can

become a collection site, or they can give financially.

Is there anything else that I am forgetting or that I've missed that you recall?

Yeah, I think we've hit on a lot of, on a lot of the details, just trying to get

the word out and letting people know what we're doing and why we're doing it. Yeah,

I think the last thing that maybe I'll say is when you do visit askproexteriors .com

slash 2025 dash 5 -food -drive, or if you follow that QR code that's on screen now,

just poke around on there. If you want to learn a little bit more about the food

pantry or the Shepard's office, we have their websites linked right there. You can

vet them for yourself. We know that money is tight for many of us,

and so that we want to make sure that anything that we're giving extra is going to

a good cause. So if you have any doubts at all. Don't take our word for it. Visit

their websites.

The drop -off locations are going to be populating down here. Right now we have pro

exteriors, and I know we have at least one more business on board as of this

recording, but we're going to continue to update the site as it goes.

I think that is it. Kara, I do want to thank you for being part of things today

and for rolling with the punches of my last minute changes to things.

Yeah, thanks for being part of things. Yeah, no, thanks for having me on today. I'm

happy to talk about it.

All right, everybody, that is all we have for you today on this special episode of

the You Ask the Pros Answer podcast. Would you please continue to help us get the

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from you. What are some of the questions that you have related to exterior home

remodeling. Again, this was a different kind of episode for us. Typically, we tackle

your questions. You can send those questions to info at askproexteriors .com and place

you ask in the subject. If you are facing an upcoming home project,

we hope that most of our episodes help you tackle them with confidence. Remember,

knowledge is power, and a little bit of search can go a long way. Until next time,

happy home owning. The U .S. The Pros Answer podcast is produced in -house by the

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