Each year, Food Lion Feeds, the community service arm of southeastern grocery store chain Food Lion, presents the Feedys Awards, which recognizes community members passionate about ending hunger in the towns and cities Food Lion serves. 

This year, the Lion Heart Volunteer Award went to Alyssa Griffin, an NC State graduate student and Feed the Pack Food Pantry pantry manager who plays a pivotal role in Feed the Pack’s mission of combatting food insecurity among the NC State community. In late May, Griffin received her award in a ceremony at North Hall’s Pack Essentials Hub that included her coworkers, as well as representatives from Food Lion Feeds and other Feed the Pack community partners. 

“I love this work so much,” Griffin said. “Everyone you interact with in this collegiate food insecurity space is just so kind, welcoming and understanding. They’re some of the most wonderful people I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with since moving to Raleigh, and that whole community, Feed the Pack and the people we partner with, make me feel like I have a home here.”

The Lion Heart Volunteer Award goes to “an individual who demonstrates outstanding skill in coordinating and motivating groups of donors and volunteers for hunger relief projects for the benefit of Food Lion Feeds and its partner food banks.” 

u0022She’s always going above and beyond.u0022

Griffin was nominated for the award among a pool of candidates from communities across Food Lion’s 10-state footprint. A committee consisting of eight Food Lion Feeds staff members, including Community Relations and Marketing Specialist David Hardee, selected Griffin to receive the annual honor. 

“She’s always going above and beyond,” Hardee said. “She makes sure everything is coordinated the way it’s supposed to be. Not only that, but we at Food Lion pride ourselves on volunteer engagement. We challenge our retail leaders to get out and combat food insecurity. Alyssa’s fantastic working with our local stores knowing that they want to get out and volunteer, and just being a really good partner in that sense as well as embracing those opportunities, knowing that we have plenty of people to come that want to volunteer as well.”

Griffin was nominated by another Feed the Pack community partner, the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. 

Alex Gooding, the Food Bank’s food partnerships coordinator, communicates regularly with Griffin to assist her with coordinating various retail partnerships with Feed the Pack’s food donors.

“It was a no-brainer when I was looking down my list of agencies to see who checked all these boxes,” Gooding said. “Alyssa has an incredible commitment to her pantry and she truly cares about serving the patrons and creating a dignified, welcoming and efficient shopping experience for everyone that comes to the Feed the Pack Food Pantry. I wanted to highlight her and the  impact that she makes, especially knowing she’s a full-time graduate student, who only has nine hours a week in the pantry. She does so much behind the scenes, and I just wanted to take a moment to recognize her hard work.”

Stevie Kimmet, Pack Essentials’ program director, said that despite Griffin’s busy schedule as a full-time graduate student, she still plays a vital role for Feed the Pack’s work. Of the 160,000 pounds of food distributed to the NC State community by Feed the Pack last year, about 145,000-150,000 pounds were donated.

The bulk of that donated food comes from Feed the Pack’s Food Recovery Program, organized through Griffin’s work with the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, Food Lion Feeds and other community partners. 

“I think that the work she does has an incredible impact on scaling the pantry’s operations, and our capacity to serve people well,” Kimmet said. “She’s the total package of a person who’s kind, ultra competent, hard working and really thoughtful. People love her. She’s just truly a 20/10.”

Kimmet and other Feed the Pack staff also said that, oftentimes when there’s a question or issue with the operation of the pantry, Griffin is the first call placed, and is usually able to help sort it out. 

“Any questions we have, she’s the first person we go to,”  said Shishira Puttaswamy, Pack Essentials’ program associate. Anytime I have a question, I’m like ‘Let’s Google Chat Alyssa and get the answer from her.’ So her being recognized makes us so proud. It’s a celebration for all of us. We all get to celebrate her award. It’s been wonderful to work with her.”

In the third year of the atmospheric sciences Ph.D. program, Griffin finds herself with a packed schedule, one that also includes a full-time internship with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality for summer 2026, as well as her graduate school research. 

However, even as her studies continue to ramp up, Griffin said that her work and home with Feed the Pack will always be a vital element of her NC State experience. 

“It’s extremely important to me,” Griffin said. “I absolutely love my research. It scratches that science and that curiosity side of my brain. But it’s also really nice to, at 4 p.m., close the computer, pop over to Feed the Pack and get to engage with the community a little more, get to use my brain in a different way with some of the problem solving. That fast-paced part of my brain is really satisfied with that work, and getting to interact with people. So I’m very lucky that NC State allows me to do my more research/science passion, but then also this work at the same time. It can be a lot to balance, but I truly believe that if you love something and you’re passionate about something, you find ways to make it work.”

This post was originally published in DASA.