BARRE, VT- November 8th 2018, 107.1 Frank-fm, Froggy 100.9 and 105.7 The Beat announce that the Stuff-A-Truck food and funds drive for the Central Vermont Salvation Army Emergency Food Shelf is on the move!   Stuff-A-Truck celebrates its 17th year of Neighbors helping Neighbors at a Midstate Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, Ram and Hyundai on the Barre Montpelier Road and begins on November 15th.  The local radio stations from Great Eastern Radio with help from the Vermont Army National Guard will attempt again to stuff a Bellavance tractor trailer with canned food and will also be accepting monetary donations in the Salvation Army’s signature red kettles.   
 
Stuff-A-Truck enters its 17th year of giving with the distinction of becoming the largest Salvation Army Food Drive in New England!  Frank-fm Program Director, host of The Frank-fm Late Afternoon Show and the chairman of the Central Vermont Salvation Army Advisory Board, TJ Michaels is pretty proud of that.  
 
“It’s hard to believe that it’s 17 years later!  Almost 250 tons of food and $178,000 raised for local less fortunate families, everything raised stays right here!  I can’t get over how we’ve grown.  The first Stuff A Truck Event signs that hung on our Bellavance truck were sewn together bed sheets with black spray painted letters!  We were set up in the field  and we were determined to Stuff that Truck! There were no Vermont Country Campers.  We slept in the back of the truck with the canned food, in a tent and it was really cold!  Although the event looks much different today, we look to the Salvation Army’s motto of “Doing The Most Good,” the mission is still the same to stuff the truck as full as possible and raise money for the Emergency Food Shelf.  We are now the biggest in New England, which is very cool but it’s people that make this whole thing work.  The radio stations with our community partners are just big megaphones that inspire neighbors to help neighbors.  We’re big because Vermont is a special place where we do care about each other and  because Central Vermonters have big hearts!  In Central Vermont we’ve proven that we take care of our own and I can’t stress how important this year’s event is!
 
The food raised during Stuff-A-Truck has in years past sustained the Salvation Army’s Food Shelf for the entire year on very little or zero additional funding.  Michaels says, last year the program shattered records with  20.8 tons of food and over $12,000.  Michaels adds, that while many talk about the economy getting better, many in Vermont are still hurting.  The Salvation Army Emergency food shelf is still seeing record numbers of families who are still seeking help.   Higher energy costs and an economic recovery that has been slow in Vermont puts  low income families under more pressure to decide between food and heat or food and medicine this winter.  Something Michaels says is a choice that no one should have to make.   
 
For the past 16 years, Frank, Froggy and 105.7 The Beat with help from the citizen soldiers of the Vermont Army National Guard  have spent every  November doing what the Salvation Army calls “The Most Good!”   What started with just a 53 foot long empty, Bellavance tractor trailer today looks like a traveling circus has come to town.  RV’s, flood lights, The truck clad now in banners from supporting businesses, TV Satellite Trucks,  rock,  country and top 40 music fill the air as soldiers and volunteers cheer and scramble to unload incoming vehicles with non-perishables.   There is even a Friday night fireworks display thanks to the generous support of Northstar Fireworks.