Foodshare’s longtime CEO Gloria McAdam, who spent three decades at the charity organization, died Tuesday after suffering from a brain tumor. She was 62.
Current CEO and President Jason Jakubowski announced McAdam’s passing on Wednesday saying her passion for ending food insecurity and helping others had “no bounds.”
McAdam, a former Windsor resident, left Bloomfield-based Foodshare in 2014 to return home to Canton, N.Y., where she began leading GardenShare, a local organization focused on combating hunger, Jakubowski said.
He credited McAdam with growing Foodshare, which serves as the food bank for Hartford and Tolland counties, during her tenure, which began in 1982. McAdam, he said, helped increase Foodshare’s annual distribution from 20,000 meals a year when she started to 11 million meals to 300 local partners in 2018.
“Gloria was Foodshare for more than 30 years,” Jakubowski said Thursday. “It’s an honor for me to physically sit at her desk every day and continue her legacy.”
In 2013, Greg Garger, Foodshare’s board chair at the time, called McAdam a “very effective business leader.”
“When you look at the increase in food distributed, the impact on the community, and the impact on the hunger conversation, Foodshare’s growth is Gloria’s growth,” Garger said.
McAdam spurred the food-sharing program by establishing Hunger Action Teams across the region and encouraging officials from town government, schools, businesses and other local organizations to work together and identify gaps in their own communities.
She earned Hartford Business Journal’s Lifetime Achievement award in 2013.
McAdam previously served as district executive for the Long Rivers Council for the Boy Scouts of America. McAdam also earned a bachelor’s degree in government from St. Lawrence University in New York.
Today, Jakubowski says Foodshare has 55 workers that serve 120,000 people in Hartford and Tolland counties. Foodshare operates a 60,000-square-foot distribution warehouse at 450 Woodland Ave. in Bloomfield.
