Sean Dobbin

ROC

Ferraro died early Tuesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer

Foodlink started with a borrowed school bus%2C and is now a 500-member organization

This year%2C Foodlink hopes to distribute 18 million pounds of food

Thomas C. Ferraro, the founder and executive director of regional food bank Foodlink, died early Tuesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 67. Foodlink announced his death in a press release. Ferraro, a lifelong resident of the Rochester area, had been at the reins of Foodlink from its unofficial first day — when he borrowed an old school bus to pick up a bunch of English muffins — to his last. Today, the 500-member organization distributes tens of millions of meals annually to area soup kitchens and food cupboards. "There was nobody else in the community like Tom," said Holli Budd, executive director of the Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation. "A visionary, a leader, an entrepreneur, a do-er, and somebody who does it not only brilliantly but without any fanfare. This community was so blessed to have somebody like Tom."

Ferraro, who lived in Pittsford, is survived by his mother, Marion; his wife of 20 years, Regine Calvar; sons Michael, Philippe, and John; granddaughters Victoria and Isabelle, and countless other family members and friends.

Foodlink

The story of Foodlink's beginnings is one that those close to its founder know well.

After appearing on the Eddie Meath Show in 1978 to make an appeal for a Rochester food cupboard, Ferraro got a call from someone looking to donate some English muffins.

When he arrived at the Henrietta market to pick them up, the donors laughed at him. There was no way that the more than 200 trays of donated muffins would fit in his station wagon.

So Ferraro borrowed an old school bus, and Foodlink — originally called the Genesee Valley Regional Food Clearinghouse — was born. At the time, it was one of the first food banks in the United States, and Ferraro would serve as its executive director for the next 36 years.

In 1983, the first year that Foodlink was officially incorporated as an independent organization, the food bank distributed 660,000 pounds of food. By 1987, the poundage had climbed to 3 million. By 2001, over 6 million. And this year, Foodlink hopes to distribute 18 million pounds of food.

Throughout Ferraro's tenure, other agencies across the country have continued to look to Foodlink as a model for what a regional food bank could be.

Ferraro led the creation of a community kitchen, operated by Foodlink, that helped distribute nutritious meals to needy residents. He experimented with urban agriculture, using Foodlink's warehouses to attempt with indoor growing. And under his leadership, Foodlink developed a program to bring more fresh fruits and vegetables into the city, specifically targeting areas bereft of nearby grocery stores.

"The thing that has always been remarkable about Tom is 'How do we make it work?' That seemed to be his motto and he was constantly thinking of that," said Bonnie DeVinney, vice president and chief program officer for the Greater Rochester Health Foundation.

Legacy

For those who didn't know him well, a conversation with Ferraro was often an adventure. He'd fill his monologues with metaphors, jumping from one seemingly-unrelated topic to the next, and could speak for minutes on end without so much as a word from his overmatched listener.

At Foodlink, staffers would often joke that it took three months on the job before you started to understand what he was ever talking about.

"We used to call what he said 'Tom-speak,'" said Julia Tedesco, Foodlink's chief development officer. "It was our way of saying he had his own language because it was hard to keep up with him. He had more energy than anyone else on the staff and he was always flying 20,000 miles above and looking on to the next thing."

Ferraro, Mayor Lovely Warren said in an emailed statement, "was a visionary leader whose keen insight into the most basic of human needs led to the establishment of Foodlink as an organization that goes well beyond simply feeding the hungry. Thanks to Tom, the City of Rochester enjoys incredible partnerships with Foodlink, including at the Public Market, Recreation Centers, libraries and with community gardens."

But while Foodlink's vast distribution network and ubiquity in Rochester's battle against hunger will undoubtedly be Ferraro's legacy, it was his commitment to addressing the underlying causes of poverty that most impressed those he worked with.

"As big of a thinker he was, he was so interested in people. He often said no one ever woke up hungry one day without something else having gone wrong in their lives first, and he had an incredible amount of passion for that — that people hit hard times sometimes through no fault of their own," said Tedesco. "So he had that macro-level of being huge and visionary and that micro-level of really being interested in people's lives."

Fond of the saying that "You can't solve hunger by feeding it," Ferraro believed that agencies such as Foodlink were responsible not just for food distribution, but also to push for economic and educational initiatives that would help decrease poverty, and to be leaders in the forum of public health.

"From the beginning, what I've admired so much is his trying to get to the root cause of hunger," said Mary Ellen Burris, senior vice president of consumer affairs for Wegmans Food Markets Inc. "Not to diminish the significance of food for hungry people, but to say 'What's really causing that? And how can we try to prevent this from happening?'"

In an emailed statement, Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks said that "while we grieve Tom's loss, we are also grateful his legacy of selflessness will continue to live-on in our community through Foodlink and his many other charitable endeavors for decades to come."

He occasionally dabbled in politics, bouncing back and forth in his party affiliations. He lost a bid for the Democratic designation for a City Council race in 1977, and in 2005, ran as a Republican for a seat in the Monroe County Legislature, losing in a close race.

But other than those flirtations with public office, Ferraro largely stayed out of the spotlight.

"It's never about Tom. It's about the issues, which has made him a pleasure to work with for many of us," said Dr. Nana Bennett, director of the Center for Community Health at the University of Rochester Medical Center. "He really exemplifies a public servant who is dedicated to the welfare of the community and really isn't concerned about his own importance or power."

Tedesco and Jeanette Batiste, Foodlink's chief operating officer, will serve as the organization's co-executive directors for the foreseeable future.

SDOBBIN@DemocratandChronicle.com

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