History of the Food Drive

In February of 2012, Daniel Loomans was approached by a student to hold a world record food drive in correspondence to an event at the end of the school year. He proposed the food drive and the organization chose not to take two events on at once. After the vote, Daniel was given the motivation to begin the coordination process of his own world record food drive event. Very soon that process would launch. 

A friend of Daniel Loomans' referred a coordinator of the Fond du lac Association of Commerce to help get this food drive started. Lesley Manowske guided Loomans through the steps to getting the event off the ground. She referred Sarah Zimmerman, an employee of a large local manufacturer Mercury Marine, also the President of the Fondy Food Pantry. Loomans and Zimmerman soon met to discuss the first phases of the food drive. Kevin Miller of the Windhover Center for the Performing Arts in Fond du Lac got involved and offered to be the adult advisor of Loomans with the City of Fond du Lac. Daniel Loomans was ready to begin a proposal to the city and worked closely with Miller and Sue Strands, the City Clerk of Fond du Lac, to read a ready-to-propose proposal. 

Food for the Fourth, taking place on the Fourth of July, was born on the foundation of the first ideas of Loomans and his affiliaties. The vision was to hold the world record food drive event in a popular lakefront park of Fond du lac: Lakeside Park. Discussion about the location and the date were common until Loomans moved to change the date of Food for the Fourth to Memorial Day Weekend of 2013 and change the original name to Food for Freedom. 

Food for Freedom was reborn into a new event with new goals and new ideals. Discussion continued on the location of the food drive and was changed in June of 2012 to Fond du Lac High School, the school of Daniel Loomans. The facility would provide the space needed to hold the drive and break the world record. Loomans met with many people to get the foundation of this organization and event formed including Lesley manowske, Kevin Miller, Sue Strands and the City of Fond du Lac Department Coordinators, Nicole Wiese, a marketing specialist at National Exchange Bank, John Williams, Facility Services for the Fond du Lac School District, and Sarah Zimmerman. 

Currently, the team is working on the formation of a board of directors to specialize in each of these specific areas. Daniel Loomans continues to work on the food drive each day, making advancements frequently. When asked his motivation, "To provide people that don't have the luxuries we have with the food and nutrition they need. As far as the record goes, records are made to be broken...and I'd go to the ends of the earth to break this one."