How Duke’s basketball brotherhood is helping to feed the hungry during COVID-19 pandemic
Players from the Duke men’s basketball team like to talk about the bond they form while playing for coach Mike Krzyzewski as being a “brotherhood.”
Friday, that brotherhood came together to help the hungry in central North Carolina.
Former Duke manager Kevin Marchetti appeared on the Blue Devils’ Twitter livestream to announce that his food supply company, Lineage, was partnering with Coach K and Duke to donate $225,000 to the Foodbank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.
The Food Bank is a nonprofit organization that employs 150 people. It has helped feed the hungry in 34 counties in central and eastern North Carolina for 40 years.
Jennifer Caslin, marketing project manager for the food bank, appeared on the broadcast and said the food bank has been especially stressed during the COVID-19 outbreak. She estimated need has spiked 150 percent.
“It’s unprecedented,” she said. “Everybody’s trying to figure out the new normal right now.”
Marchetti, a manager at Duke in 1996, is co-executive chairman of Lineage. Last month, the company committed to a $5 million donation to help provide 100 million meals to people in need in response to the pandemic.
Marchetti said Lineage employs 14,000 people and controls more than a third of all temperature controlled-food that comes through the country.
“We couldn’t think of something more important to do right now in this time of crisis,” Marchetti said of the Duke pledge.
Coach K teased Marchetti for helping put the Durham partnership together, saying he never envisioned the former manager being a point guard, but thanked him for his efforts.
“A cool thing for me,” Krzyzewski said, “is bringing great players together, and all of a sudden, it really produces the great team, but more importantly, great results. Today is about bringing two great entities together and we’re going to have a great result.”
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 2:13 PM with the headline "How Duke’s basketball brotherhood is helping to feed the hungry during COVID-19 pandemic."
