The Arkansas Foodbank is a non-profit food bank located in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Arkansas Foodbank distributed more than 20.9 million pounds of food and grocery products to its member agencies for Arkansans in need in 2013, according to Chief Executive Officer, Rhonda Sanders.
Established in 1984, the Arkansas Foodbank is a cornerstone of hunger relief. Through local and national partnerships, the Foodbank acquires and distributes large quantities of food and other resources to hungry people. Food and other grocery products are distributed to food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and schools throughout its entire 33-county service area in central and south Arkansas. The Foodbank's central location is a 73,000 sq. ft warehouse in Little Rock, called the Donald W. Reynolds Distribution Center. They also operate two other branches in Caddo Valley and Warren, Arkansas.
More than 270,000 people within the Arkansas Foodbank's 33-county service area don't have a steady source of food; nearly 90,000 of them are children. Last year, the Foodbank distributed 17.4 million meals to their 300 member agencies to help feed the hungry. [1]
The Arkansas Foodbank is a member of Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks that leads the fight against hunger in the United States. They are also a founding member of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. The group is made up of the 6 Feeding America food banks in Arkansas with the goal to create a coordinated effort to reduce hunger in the state. [2]
The Foodbank provides hunger-relief services to 300 member agencies. Many of them our either food pantries, soup kitchens or shelters. The Foodbank also provides assistance through the following programs:
In 2010, as a result of a $10.3 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, the Arkansas Foodbank began constructing a new warehouse and distribution facility. On March 28, 2011, operations began at the new Arkansas Foodbank Donald W. Reynolds Distribution Center. Key advantages of the new facility is that it more than doubles the Foodbank's storage capacity for dry, refrigerated, and frozen products, it will serve to accelerate food sourcing and distribution, give the Foodbank the ability to handle diverse products for better diets for the hungry people of Arkansas, and lastly, improves the usable facilities for volunteers, especially groups of volunteers seeking worthwhile community service projects.
The Foodbank serves 33 counties in Arkansas:
In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In the field of hunger relief, the term hunger is used in a sense that goes beyond the common desire for food that all humans experience, also known as an appetite. The most extreme form of hunger, when malnutrition is widespread, and when people have started dying of starvation through lack of access to sufficient, nutritious food, leads to a declaration of famine.
A soup kitchen, food kitchen, or meal center, is a place where food is offered to the hungry usually for free or sometimes at a below-market price. Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoods, soup kitchens are often staffed by volunteer organizations, such as church or community groups. Soup kitchens sometimes obtain food from a food bank for free or at a low price, because they are considered a charity, which makes it easier for them to feed the many people who require their services.
The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The FNS is the federal agency responsible for administering the nation’s domestic nutrition assistance programs. The service helps to address the issue of hunger in the United States.
A food bank is a non-profit, charitable organization that distributes food to those who have difficulty purchasing enough to avoid hunger, usually through intermediaries like food pantries and soup kitchens. Some food banks distribute food directly with their own food pantries.
Feeding America is a United States–based nonprofit organization that is a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks that feed more than 46 million people through food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and other community-based agencies. Forbes ranks it as the second largest U.S. charity by revenue. Feeding America was known as America's Second Harvest until August 31, 2008.
The North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) is a social benefit organization located in Plano, Texas. The organization distributes donated, purchased and prepared foods through a network of nearly 1,000 feeding programs and 262 Partner Agencies in 13 North Texas counties. The NTFB supports the nutritional needs of children, seniors, and families through education, advocacy and strategic partnerships.
Food rescue, also called food recovery, food salvage or surplus food redistribution, is the practice of gleaning edible food that would otherwise go to waste from places such as farms, produce markets, grocery stores, restaurants, or dining facilities and distributing it to local emergency food programs.
Redwood Empire Food Bank (REFB) is a food bank on the North Coast of California which belongs to the Feeding America network. Its mission is to end hunger in its community.
The Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD) is a nonprofit organization that fights hunger throughout Cook County, Illinois. The GCFD distributes donated and purchased food through a network of 700 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and community programs, serving more than 800,000 adults and children every year. In fiscal year 2016, the GCFD distributed more than 70 million pounds of nonperishable food, produce, dairy products, and meat - the equivalent of more than 160,000 meals every day. Of the $96,883,955 spent in 2016, over 90% went to direct food distribution programs.
Hunger Task Force, Inc. is a non-profit, anti-hunger public policy organization in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hunger Task Force works to end hunger in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin by providing direct food delivery services, and works to end future hunger by advocating for fair and responsible administration of federal nutrition assistance programs.
Philabundance is a non-profit food bank that serves the Philadelphia and Delaware Valley region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is the largest such organization in the region.
The Vermont Foodbank is the largest anti-hunger organization in Vermont.
The Alameda County Community Food Bank is a non-profit organization that supplies food to 275 Alameda County, California agencies including food pantries, soup kitchens, child-care and senior centers, and after-school programs, provides an emergency food helpline, teaches nutrition and hunger education, and conducts outreach about California's food stamps program CalFresh. Located in Oakland, California, the food bank distributes enough food for 300,000 meals weekly. Almost 50% of the food supply consists of fresh produce from California farms. The organization is a member of the California Association of Food Banks, Feeding America, and the California Hunger Action Coalition. Their headquarters are at 7900 Edgewater Drive, next door to Oikos University. The food bank is in the former location of the book distributor Bookpeople.
Hunger in the United States of America affects millions of Americans, including some who are middle class, or who are in households where all adults are in work. The United States produces far more food than it needs for domestic consumption—hunger within the U.S. is caused by some Americans having insufficient money to buy food for themselves or their families. Additional causes of hunger and food insecurity include neighborhood deprivation and agricultural policy. Hunger is addressed by a mix of public and private food aid provision. Public interventions include changes to agricultural policy, the construction of supermarkets in underserved neighborhoods, investment in transportation infrastructure, and the development of community gardens. Private aid is provided by food pantries, soup kitchens, food banks, and food rescue organizations.
The Freestore Foodbank is the largest emergency food and services provider to children and families in Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana.
Second Harvest North Florida (SHNF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Jacksonville, Florida, that performs food rescue and redistribution to partner agencies in one quarter of Florida's 67 counties. The charitable organization has been active for over 30 years.
La Soupe is a Cincinnati, Ohio, nonprofit organization that uses discarded food to produce meals and delivers them to other nonprofit agencies for distribution to people experiencing food insecurity.
St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance is a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization located in Phoenix, Arizona. Founded in 1967 by John van Hengel, St. Mary's was the first modern organization to operate using the food bank model, which spread throughout U.S. and the rest of the world. Today, St. Mary's is recognized as the world's first food bank.
Share Food Program is a social services organization working for hunger relief in the Philadelphia region of Pennsylvania, United States. It serves as a food bank to the communities in accordance with USDA civil rights regulations and feeds more than 1 million people each month in Philadelphia and the suburbs. Share Food Program is the largest hunger-relief agency in the Greater Philadelphia area.
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