A salmonella outbreak at a peanut plant unfortunately has scared people into not buying peanut butter. When Soozi McLain, director of physical therapy at St. Mary’s Home for Disabled Children, recently read an article about how this has depleted supplies of peanut butter — a much-needed staple — at food banks, she knew she had to do something about it.
Soozi and the PT Department at SMHDC have just finished up a peanut butter drive at the Home. They collected 61 jars of the gooey stuff to drop off at the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia.
Community service is nothing new to PT. The department has been involved in many projects, including adopting a family for the holidays, collecting money for mosquito nets to help stop the spread of malaria in Africa and coordinating the donation of platelets by St. Mary’s staff to the Red Cross every three months.
In the photo, Soozi McLain, left and Anne Freeman, right, hold the peanut butter collection box while surrounded by some PT staffers: from left, Nicole Ellis, Jennifer Reasor, Kathy Brobst, Barbara Graeff-Taylor and Rebecca Lowrance. PT staffers not pictured: Lynn Regna, Rhonda Bailey, Judy Peltz and Jackie Reese.