Volunteers pack Glendale stadium to prepare meals on 9/11 Day

By Richard Smith
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Packing meals for people in need Friday afternoon at State Farm Stadium in Glendale was fulfilling for Dress For Success Arizona CEO Tamala McBath.

It also brought the leader of the Phoenix-based nonprofit back 25 years. On Sept. 11, 2001, McBath was meeting in a Virginia Beach, Va. conference center with fellow employees of a healthcare company.

Everyone walked out and their pagers started buzzing for minutes. Their hospital was prepped for a role in caring for victims of the 9/11 attacks.

“We ran a tertiary trauma hospital and we were close to D.C. I’m from the East Coast. I lived in Virginia Beach at the time,” McBath said. “We immediately moved into action and had to start moving patients because the Pentagon had been hit. We had to be ready in case we had burn patients. It was a chain reaction from D.C. to Virginia.”

Personal trauma was barely averted.

“I had a relative in the Pentagon at the time," McBath said. “He was okay, but we didn’t know for a few minutes.”

She was one of 10 Dress For Success Arizona employees volunteering in a meal packing operation for the nationwide nonprofit 9/11 Day.

Around 1,400 volunteers helped pack meals Friday, plus another 120 volunteers helped organize and support the operation, said Barb Harris, the founder of PR Consultants Group.

Several local corporations joined in, including Starbucks, UMOM New Day Centers, OpenTech Alliance, Swire Coca-Cola, Nestle and Amkor.

The 9/11 Day organization began this event in 2018 in three cities: New York, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

“We have someone who is on our board that was a retired New York firefighter and lives here,” Harris said. “That was very small and it was a packing event at St. Mary’s Food Bank.”

In 2019 the event moved to the Phoenix Convention Center and added corporate sponsors, who buy a set number of tables for volunteers to pack meals. Corporate volunteers work for two hours packing shelf stable meals of lentil and rice.

After a COVID-19-related cancellation in 2020, the event returned to the convention center from 2021-2023. In 2024 and 2025 it was at Mullet Arena, in Tempe .

Marking 25 years, since the attacks, 9/11 Day decided to more than double its 2025 efforts of 24 cities.

“There’s 50 cities doing this. We’re going to pack 17 million meals,” Harris said.

Nonprofits like Kids Around the World and independent government agencies like AmeriCorps are helping with food distribution.

Meals packed the morning of Sept. 11 will go to Phoenix-based St. Mary’s Food Bank, while those packed in the afternoon go to United Food Bank

Mesa-based United Food Bank is one of four Feeding America food banks in Arizona, serving eastern Maricopa County, including five east of that, all the way to the New Mexico boarder.

“This food is incredible because it’s super shelf stable and gives us a lot of flexibility with how we’re able to distribute it and get it out to some of our rural partners and tribal communities. This is just fantastic. They’re great meals for families and easy to use,” said Mandy Hodges, director of community engagement and grants at United Food Bank. “Especially going into the holidays. It’s September but we’re in the holidays.”

The food bank works with Title 1 schools in districts like Mesa Public Schools, Tempe Union and Kyrene Elementary. This year, United started summer distributions to kids.

“Sometimes they use them for an after school program. Sometimes they give them to kids for the weekend backpack meals. One package of this will make six cups of stew,” Harris said.

Tom Brock, a former New York policeman and firefighter, cisited the event Friday. He is on the 9/11 Day board and a lives in the Valley.

This year, the, 9/11 Day board officers and the board decided to go big in the Valley.

“It’s not every day you get to come and hang out in the Cardinals stadium,” Hodges said.

Dress For Success Arizona has offices in Central Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria and Paradise Valley.

McBath said events like 9/11 Day are a reminder to give back as a matter of course, not just in memory of a tragedy

“It’s real cool to see all the people,” McBath said. “We’re a non-profit and it’s good for us to come out and give our time too because volunteers make it happen for us. We would never do anything without the volunteers.”

Richard Smith
Senior News Editor | Glendale & West Valley Preps

rsmith@iniusa.org

Richard Smith has been with Independent Newsmedia since 2016, and worked at a Sun City-based news outfit covering the Northwest Valley for 22 consecutive years.

An NAU alum and lifelong Arizona resident, Richard began as a copy editor and page designer at Surprise Today and the Daily News-Sun, then rekindled his love of sports writing by taking the reins on West Valley Preps in 2008.

For most of the mid-2010s he was the Surprise editor and West Valley Preps reporter. Now he’s the West Valley Preps Editor and Surprise Associate Editor.

As COVID restrictions slowly lift, Richard is cautiously optimistic he will visit book stores, football fields and gyms again this fall.