114: Ryan McFadden

Warehouse Supervisor, Russo’s Food Market

While having four other people at home to care for, including a special needs daughter and a fiancee with medical issues, he worked through the entire pandemic. His personal challenge was to stay safe and not bring the virus home to his family. He was successful. Even though a few of his friends contracted COVID, none of his family did. 

Ryan is the Warehouse Supervisor at Russo’s Food Market. They not only sell retail, but also wholesale food and food items to many restaurants in the area. Every day they send out 8 trucks of food from their warehouse making deliveries. About two weeks into the shutdown, he noticed their role in distribution was assisting the restaurants stay open. By that I mean they changed to accommodate a more “take out” driven market. Many more take out items were going through the warehouse. They became the backbone of operations to many local restaurants.

Through it all, he saw the people he deals with daily becoming closer. “People were caring more about each other. The sense of humanity came to the forefront.”

He loves being outdoors. Moving forward he will take nothing for granted and hopes to spend more time with the people that matter to him. He’d like to see us all come out of this remembering who we are and where we came from to get through this.