NFI Partnership Helps Salvation Army Allentown Expand Food Dist. Across Lehigh Valley
A growing partnership with NFI Industries is helping The Salvation Army transport more food and essential items to families in need throughout the region.
For years, staff at The Salvation Army Allentown Corps spent hours renting trucks, loading pallets by hand, and coordinating volunteers just to transport enough food and supplies to meet community needs.
The Corps provides food assistance, emergency support, youth programs, and other critical services to individuals and families in the region. As demand for its pantry services and programs, which serve roughly 650 individuals each month, continued to grow, limited transportation and storage capacity made it increasingly difficult to accept and more food and essential items.
Thanks to a partnership with NFI Industries, a family-owned, North American third-party logistics provider, the Allentown Corps is now able to distribute significantly more food and supplies throughout the Lehigh Valley, while allowing staff to spend less time managing logistics and more time directly serving families in need.
“It became difficult for our team to manage day-to-day responsibilities while also handling the physical demands of transporting supplies,” said Deirdre Govan, Resource Development Manager at The Salvation Army Allentown Corps. “The work was physically demanding, time-consuming, and expensive for an already stretched team.”
That changed in May 2025, when members of the NFI team, volunteered at the Allentown Corps. In conversation, Govan explained the complicated process required to transport donations and supplies.
What began as a conversation quickly turned into action.
The Allentown Corps needed to retrieve product from the Second Harvest Food Bank, which had additional supplies available. Previously, the team would rent a 12- or 26-foot truck and transport a maximum of ten pallets. NFI arrived with a 53-foot truck capable of carrying up to 26 pallets.
“That first pickup was the most product we had ever been able to bring back at one time,” Govan said.
NFI’s dock-height trucks also made it possible to load pallets directly onto the truck, helping reduce the physical strain and transportation time.
Behind each pickup and delivery, Dean Nuttall, Transportation Manager at NFI, and his team have played a central role in keeping the partnership moving. Nuttall’s team is responsible for arranging pickups and deliveries and maintaining regular communication with Govan to help address the Corps’ evolving needs.
But the impact of the partnership has gone beyond trucks, pallets and storage space. It has also become personal for many involved.
One NFI driver, Angel Padilla, who works directly with Nuttall, became such a consistent presence during deliveries that he formed close relationships with the Corps team. His wife now volunteers with The Salvation Army as well. Angel, who Govan describes as a “literal angel,” became one of the main drivers supporting the partnership, but he also helps with loading and has offered his time beyond scheduled deliveries.
“If their heart wasn’t in it, it would just be a task,” said Sarah Hessinger, Regional HR Manager at NFI, who has been central to the partnership from the start. “But Angel really cares. That passion is the key difference in all of it.”
NFI now helps transport donations from organizations including Feed the Children, Frito Lay, FedEx, and other partners across Pennsylvania. The company has also provided storage space for overflow donations, including seasonal items that the Corps otherwise would not have had room to accept.
The partnership has also expanded what The Salvation Army is able to provide to the community. Additional product pickups helped serve more than 300 students at Dieruff High School, provide winter assistance to 65 families, impacting 135 individuals, and offer a wider variety of items to more than 175 families who visit the food pantry three times each month.
For NFI, the partnership reflects the company’s longstanding commitment to community, service, and family.
“When you hear about other families out there struggling and you know you can provide a service that will help them get the things they need, it’s kind of a no brainer,” said Marie Jucknik, Director of Transportation Operations at NFI. “If we can provide it, it’s what we’re going to do.”
“It’s about impact,” Hessinger said. “Being able to provide even more impact in terms of the things that we can offer to get goods from point A to point B, that’s what makes what we’re doing really special.”
What began as a logistical conversation grew into something bigger: a partnership rooted in service, relationships, and a shared commitment to the community.
“You never know what opportunities may come from simply telling people what you do and what your needs are,” Govan said.