Feed America First mourns the loss of veteran, community member, and dear friend, Robert Stroop. Below are some words from Feed America First's founder, Tom Henry, and the impact Robert Stroop made in our lives and in our hunger relief efforts: 

Feed America First and I were first introduced to Robert Stroop in 2007, in a time of need. Feed America First is a faith-based agency focused upon hunger relief in Middle Tennessee, and we only had 30 days to vacate our warehouse space at the old Creamery in Murfreesboro. WSMB (Channel 4) sent their reporter Alan Frio out to report that we were losing our warehouse, and I surprised him by telling him God had something better for Feed America First. On the 10:00 news that night, Alan made a plea for someone to help us find a new home, so our work in feeding the hungry could go on.

Robert Stroop called me at 7:30 a.m. the next day, and said he had our space. He shared that he had grown up poor, and had such a heart for helping the hungry. He told me (tearfully!) that he wanted to use his old Heatcraft plant to help us feed people…with a rent figure about 1/3 of the market value, and forgiving the first 4 months! From then on, I took him the rent check every month and told him stories about our work, and he invariably got choked up talking about hungry families and how important our work is.

By 2014 we had outgrown Robert’s warehouse, so I asked him if he could help us find a new space. He told me that if I would draw it up, he would build it for us….which he did, over the next three years! So Feed America First was blessed with a new 20,000 sq. ft. warehouse, built to our specs, and God immediately blessed us with so much more food than we had ever handled before!

 And Robert’s extraordinary generosity continued in 2022, when he donated the entire warehouse building and the 5 acres it sits on, so we would have a permanent home. That equity allowed FAF to build a large permanent cooler/freezer, to allow us to provide more food and fresher, more nutritious food to the 40,000 families we serve each month, and once again God favored us by filling the cooler and freezer up immediately after they opened, as we had come to expect!

In our estimation, Robert Stroop was God’s own man in Murfreesboro, using his extraordinary compassion, generosity, and resources to help us feed our neighbors in need. With his help, more than 150 MILLION pounds of food have been distributed by Feed America First since we met in 2007. Robert’s impact had been so profound that upon his passing, Feed America First will commemorate his generosity by naming our facility the Robert and Mary Stroop Memorial Distribution Center. A public ceremony honoring the naming of our warehouse in Robert's honor and the grand opening of our cooler/freezer expansion will be hosted later this year. We hope you will join us to remember Robert and celebrate all that he has done for hunger relief across the region!