22 December 2006

America’s Second Harvest Feeds Millions of Hungry People

U.S. nongovernmental organization connects more than 200 food banks and 50,000 charities

Boise State University football players help load donated turkeys to be used for Thanksgiving meals. (Photo courtesy of Idaho Foodbank)

By Louise Fenner
USINFO Staff Writer

This article is the second in a series on U.S nongovernmental organizations.

Washington – More than 25 million Americans receive food assistance each year through America’s Second Harvest - The Nation’s Food Bank Network, which brings together food banks and charities.

The network assists almost as many people as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) does through its food stamp program, said Maura Daly, director of  communications for America’s Second Harvest.  About two billion tons of food are donated and distributed nationally through the network each year.

As the nation’s largest charitable hunger relief organization, America’s Second Harvest, with headquarters in Chicago, comprises more than 200 food banks and food rescue organizations in the United States and Puerto Rico. 

The food banks provide a centralized location where 50,000 U.S. charitable groups can get the canned goods, bread and other groceries they give to hungry people in their communities – at no cost.  These local nonprofit agencies serve meals, hand out grocery boxes and feed the needy through a variety of programs. 

The food rescue concept was created 40 years ago by a retired businessman in Phoenix who learned that grocery stores there were throwing away damaged food items. People eating at the soup kitchen where he volunteered told him they often rummaged through store garbage bins to help feed their families.

John van Hengel “believed there had to be a more dignified way for people to access that food,” said Daly.  With a grant from his church, van Hengel set up a warehouse in 1967 which became the nation’s first food bank.

Without such operations, “a lot of feeding programs could not survive, and people at risk of hunger would need to be coming to the government for help,” said Brian Smith of the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington. That food bank, like others, receives donations of food and household items from manufacturers, grocery stores, restaurants, individuals and groups. 

The retail food donations might be overstocked items or “the smashed boxes and dented cans that people might not buy -- but it’s still good food,” said Smith.

Volunteers collect and sort donations at the Bay Area Food Bank in Theodore, Alabama. (Photo courtesy of America's Second Harvest)

Most food banks also receive some commodities such as beans, cheese and produce from the USDA, along with funds to cover the expense of storing and transporting them. They do not receive other federal support. Financial donations come mostly from individuals, charitable foundations and corporations. Volunteers usually sort and pack donated items for transfer to soup kitchens, senior centers and other charitable agencies.

Each year around 11,000 volunteers work at the Capital Area Food Bank, said Smith.  About one-third come from other states -- for instance, visiting church groups or high school classes that want to spend some time doing community service in addition to sightseeing.

Nationally, more than 1 million people volunteer at food banks or charitable food agencies each year, said Daly.  “Volunteers are the lifeline of our network,” she said. 

Food banks also serve areas other than large cities.  Roger Simon, executive director of the Idaho Foodbank in Boise, said 81,400 people in the sparsely populated, mostly rural state receive food assistance each year.  They are mostly the working poor, and many seek help after they use up their food stamp-allocation, he said.

One success story in Boise is Sue Cobley, a woman with five children who once was homeless. In 1996, she founded Chefs to the Rescue, which collects more than 27,000 kilograms of prepared but unused food from restaurants in Boise each month and works with the Idaho Foodbank to distribute it to the needy.

A “landmark event” for America’s Second Harvest was the response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, said Daly.  In advance of the storms, trucks were loaded with food and water and staged in safe locations near the Gulf Coast.  More than 2,500 truckloads of food, water and other supplies, from diapers to can openers, were sent to the area.  “In times of disaster, we can mobilize within moments,” Daly said.  

According to a study by America’s Second Harvest, the number of people receiving food assistance through the network increased 9 percent between 2000 and 2004, and more people needed assistance on a temporary, rather than a long-term, basis. 

“Our network is really serving those people who are temporarily having to make tough choices between food and other basic necessities” such as heat, medicine or health care, she said.

Additional information about America’s Second Harvest is available on the organization’s Web site. Information about an international effort to expand the food-bank model is available from the The Global Foodbanking Network.

For more information, see Volunteerism and the eJournal, Giving: U.S. Philanthropy.

See also “U.S. Nonprofit Group Is 'Nation’s Voice on Mental Illness'.”

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)