Hometown Hero: Miss Mary

Mary Hinton lives in Cedar Hill with her husband, Tony. They'll celebrate 30 years of marriage in March.

As a child, Mary saw how hard life can be. She was born and grew up in South Dallas with seven brothers and a single mom. Her mother worked hard, but the family still had hard times. She saw adults who had to decide whether to buy food or medicine and knows what it's like to live with hunger.

Miss Mary became a special education assistant with DISD. She took a lot of her students to the Food Bank to work in a transition program and liked what she saw there.  In 2008 after retirement, she started as a volunteer. She's there five days a week and in June will have given 12,600 hours of volunteer service. Miss Mary is delighted to help get out the 190,000 meals the North Texas Food Bank delivers each day.

If you'd like to donate your time or money, log on to www.ntfb.org.