Bonnaroo’s Positive Impact on the Plateau

Festival Catering Extras Collected for Food Bank

It was in the spring of 2010 when Glenn VandenBosch, who was then the director of the Grundy County Food Bank, received a call from the organizers of Bonnaroo, the annual music festival held outside of Manchester in June. This year’s event is going on now through Sunday, June 14.

VandenBosch and the organizers made a plan to recover extra food from the catering tents on the grounds of the huge festival. These catering facilities serve three meals a day to all entertainers, VIP ticket holders, as well as the many hundreds of personnel needed to make this music festival a reality each June.

It proved to be a worthwhile venture. In 2010, 6,500 pounds of food was recovered from the Bonnaroo catering facilities. Every year at Bonnaroo, this recovery has continued, with the cooperation of the Grundy County Food Bank and the assistance of David Conover of Chattanooga and his team who help recover the food. Conover is the son of Carol VandenBosch.

In 2011, 6,000 pounds of food was recovered; in 2012, 15,000 pounds; in 2013, 9,000 pounds;  and in 2014, a record recovery was made of 22,000 pounds of food to benefit the food bank recipients in Grundy County.

This year, the recovery started on June 11, the first day of the festival, and will continue until Monday and Tuesday, June 15–16, as the festival wraps up, and the caterers return home.

Also, this year, the Bonnaroo Sustainability Program donated $500 for the Grundy County Food Bank to get their refrigerated truck operating up to standards in preparation for another great year of food recovery for the benefit of the Grundy County Food Bank and its recipients.

The Grundy County Food Bank is grateful to the Bonnaroo Sustainability Program, which continues to include the Food Bank in their yearly plans for food recovery. And they offer special thanks to David Conover and his team for their volunteer time .

MGTA Receives Grant

For the second time, the Mountain Goat Trail Alliance (MGTA) has been awarded a grant from the Bonnaroo Works Fund. The grant of $2,500 will go toward property acquisition and construction of the Trail between Monteagle and Tracy City.

“The Mountain Goat Trail is the closest trail project to Bonnaroo —only 22 miles away,” said Patrick Dean, executive director of MGTA. “Bonnaroo’s emphasis on creating healthy communities fits right in with our mission to offer recreational and health benefits, as well as economic opportunity, to the area.”

The Mountain Goat Trail is a rail-to-trail community outdoor recreation project to convert an abandoned railroad right-of-way into a multi-use recreational corridor between Grundy and Franklin counties.

The mission of the Bonnaroo Works Fund is to help communities in areas of the arts, education and environmental sustainability. 

For more information go to <www.bonnaroo.com/get-​involved>.