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Fertilizer company helps feed the hungry

Staff photo by John Ceballos

Linda Louton, left, and Aretha Perez load food into the back of a truck. They were among the more than 200 people who showed up at Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in Wimauma on Nov. 5 to collect food distributed by America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay thanks to a donation from Mosaic Fertilizer.

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By YVETTE HAMMETT

yhammett@tampatrib.com

Published: November 11, 2009

WIMAUMA - Mosaic Fertilizer celebrated its first five years on the New York Stock Exchange recently by contributing $45,000 and 6,000 pounds of food to benefit America's Second Harvest.

In all, the company and its 7,500 employees donated more than a million meals to organizations around the world to help alleviate hunger, said Mosaic Public Affairs Manager Russell Schweiss.

"To supplement the cash donations, we collected nonperishable food items at all Mosaic locations during the last month, which will be donated through Feeding America," Schweiss said.

America's Second Harvest distributes donated food to hundreds of food pantries around the region.

Its first collaboration with Mosaic took place Nov. 5 when they brought more than 250 bags of food to the Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in Wimauma.

"The people at Mosaic are the ones who really knew which agency needed help in the area, and we were happy to come out here and help make it happen," said Pat Rogers, executive director of America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay.

The turnout at the church exceeded expectations.

"I guess word got out because people started arriving early," said Jamie Ewing, church secretary at Mount Moriah. "I think we're going to top out pretty soon and hand out every bag of food."

Volunteers started handing out bags of food at 12:30 p.m. Each bag contained pasta, canned vegetables, beans and soup. Each visitor also received apples, a pastry, a container of milk and apple juice, and a loaf of bread.

On top of the contributions to Feeding America, which go locally to America's Second Harvest, the company, a worldwide distributer of phosphate-based fertilizers, also provided meals to organizations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China and India.

In addition to the contributions locally, Mosaic is also donating $5,000 to Hardee County, $2,500 to Manatee County, $2,500 to Leon County and $5,000 to Charlotte County.

Most of Mosaic's phosphate mining operations take place in Hillsborough and surrounding counties. Its new headquarters is under construction in Circa FishHawk in Lithia.

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 627-4763. John Ceballos contributed to this story.

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