BAKED (FEEL-)GOODS: Baking company feeds stranded motorists during blizzard
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A Maryland couple was among the hundreds of people stuck on a stretch of Interstate 95 in Virginia earlier this week.
About 20 hours later, Casey Holihan Noe, 23, and her husband John Noe noticed a Schmidt Baking Co. truck ahead of them.
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“We were starving,” Holihan Noe told the Washington Post. “People around us were very much struggling as well. We could hear kids crying.”
By hour 37 of not eating, the couple decided to call the Baltimore-based company to see if it could help them out, along with the other stranded motorists.
“I didn’t think it would actually work,” said Holihan Noe, who left their customer service department a voicemail.
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But just when you thought all humanity was lost, Chuck Paterakis, one of the owners of H&S Bakery, which operates Schmidt Baking, returned their call and instructed them to head over to the truck and ask the driver, Ron Hill, to pass out the bread he was hauling.
“It was an easy decision,” Paterakis told the Post, adding if he had been stuck on I-95 like that “I would want someone to offer their products.”
The couple, who was travelling to North Carolina to visit Noe’s family, joined Hill in delivering loaves of bread from vehicle to vehicle.
“We started going door to door and we got to help a lot of people,” Holihan Noe said. “Some people said this was a saving grace for them.”
In the end, around 300 packs were handed out.
“This is an incredible thank you to Schmidt Baking Company for your humanity and compassion,” Holihan Noe wrote on Facebook.
“After almost 21 hours of being stuck on 95 South, sleeping here over night, not having access to food or water, and all of the nearest towns being out of power we were tired, frustrated, and hungry,” she continued. “Many of the people stuck out here had small children, were elderly, had pets in the car, and hadn’t eaten in almost a whole day.”
The post went on to explain how Paterakis reached out and gave them the go-ahead to dig into the bread in the back of the truck.
“This was one of the kindest moments I have ever witnessed. Thank you, Schmidt.”
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