LINK Volunteer Receives Herndon Distinguished Service Award

“Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Luke 6:38).

Longtime LINK volunteer Bob Ashdown received the Town of Herndon Distinguished Service Award at the 28th Annual Mayor's Volunteer Appreciation Night in the Community Center. The special evening recognized Herndon's outstanding volunteers during "National Volunteer Week" on Sunday, April 15. 

This event was sponsored by the Herndon Town Council to congratulate and to extend the Town's appreciation to the many volunteers who have worked diligently throughout the year to make Herndon an outstanding community and to those who have provided dedicated service through community-wide volunteerism.

Bob is the first LINK volunteer to receive this prestigious award since gentleman Ed Foy and George Lingg received back to back recognition in 2007 and 2008. Previous LINK award winners were Mary Kay Stein ‘96’, Del Gochnauer ‘93’, and Linda Tacci ‘92’.

After the awards ceremony Bob said, "Andrew Horn, the guest speaker, gave us some good advice -- find your passion and begin your outreach activities by telling people what you can do for them versus what they can do for you.  It is easy to get passionate about feeding the hungry because it is one of the things the Good Lord calls us to do.  LINK offers us all the opportunity to live the Gospel, even if in a small way.  I believe that also is what LINK offers members of our church congregations as well as to people living within our community."  

LINK has been serving the Herndon, Sterling, and Ashburn communities for 40 years and provides direct delivery of emergency food to the homes of thousands of individuals each year.  Bob is our Pantry Manager. It is such a small word for a big job.  Bob began volunteering regularly for LINK in 2003.

Prior to volunteering as our Pantry Manager, Bob coordinated the bread pick-ups at various stores and businesses throughout the area. This required him to work with over 20 volunteers to ensure that leftover bread was picked up in a timely fashion and brought to the LINK pantry every week, all year long, year after year.

Bob has continued in his role as Bread Coordinator, as well as Pantry Manager. As Pantry Manager Bob oversees the pantry, and tasks food coordinators and food packers to determine and prepare the deliveries. Spanish translators assist with messages.  

Bob’s commitment to Herndon, as well as Sterling and Ashburn is immeasurable. He gives up hours each and every day to make sure that food is collected, sorted, and delivered to families who need assistance.  When deliveries are missed, Bob notices and contacts the appropriate people to complete the delivery.  When there is too much food in the pantry, Bob has developed relationships with other organizations such as Grace Ministries at Floris United Methodist Church, Messiah’s Market, Herndon Neighborhood Resource Center, The Closet, William Watters Adult Living House, Kendrick Court Senior Apartments, Cascade Village Senior Apartments, F.A.I.T.H. Thrift Store in Herndon, Express Care in Herndon, Loudoun County shelters, and the senior centers in Herndon and Sterling.  Bob coordinates and helps make deliveries each week to these organizations.

LINK has seen increases in recent years of families requesting help. Bob has assisted to recruit donations from stores such as Bloom, Wegman’s, Chipotle, Safeway, and Trader Joe’s to generously provide the food to LINK, instead of disposing it in dumpsters.  It is Bob’s compassion for the human community that motivates him to engineer ways to provide nutritious food directly to needy family’s homes.

Bob single-handedly supervises all of the volunteers that help in the pantry.  The range and depth of these tasks include teenagers looking to fulfill service hours, Boy Scouts working toward their Eagle Scout Award, families seeking a way to help others, Girl Scouts searching for projects to help the community, youth groups from area churches, and businesses requesting projects to give back.  Bob finds projects or creates them in order to satisfy the needs of each of these groups.  This is not an easy task! When we had huge bags of rice, Bob recruited Girl Scouts to resort it into Ziploc bags with instructions in English and Spanish on how to cook the food.

Bob once mentioned that his small car sometimes thinks it is a big SUV when he is transporting food for LINK. During the Holiday Program each year, Bob works all day long, helping move food from one location to where it is needed.  Most volunteers would think that they couldn’t help because they don’t have a truck or SUV, not Bob.  He just has to make more trips than most, but it doesn’t discourage him.

A new project that we’re excited about is something Bob helped establish with the assistance of Dranesville Elementary School.  A contract was signed in 2011, a refrigerator was delivered to the school and beginning in 2012, LINK has been utilizing volunteers to move “rescued” food from Dranesville Elementary to families in need.  The food was going unused due to student’s absences and had been thrown away in the past.  Recent clarification on food safety concerns have allowed LINK to begin this operation and LINK guests began receiving fresh food items in March – all due to Bob!

Bob Ashdown’s volunteerism and compassion for neighbors and community has propelled LINK to continue succeeding and emerging into a nonprofit that served over 7,000 individuals in Herndon, Sterling, and Ashburn during 2011.  His impact on the needy folks living in the Town of Herndon and other local areas is unsurpassed. We are all blessed to have his energy, selflessness and love for neighbors in our Town!

This article was compiled by Lisa Lombardozzi and Mark Gunderman. For more information about LINK, email lisalombo@signaturecos.com or visit the web site http://www.linkagainsthunger.org.