Numerous communities throughout Western New York remain underserved. For many families, that could mean a child going to school without breakfast or going to bed without eating dinner.
FeedMore WNY provides food to the most vulnerable. On Thursday, it received nearly 40,000 pounds of protein to aid that cause. Officials said that translates to more than 150,000 servings.
“That donation is really vital to helping us serve the Western New York Community,” FeedMore WNY Chief Communications Officer Anne McKenna said. “This goes a long way to helping our food insecure neighbors receive the nourishment they need.”
Food insecurity is not having access to healthy, well-balanced nutrition. One in eight Western New Yorkers struggle and receive assistance. Virginia-based Smithfield Foods and local Tops Markets joined forces as part of the Helping Hungry Homes initiative to provide the food, which included turkey, ham and bacon.
“This is the ninth year in a row we have received this donation,” McKenna said, “and over the last nine years, Smithfield Foods has donated over 150,000 pounds of nutritious, high-quality protein to the food bank.”
FeedMore also is currently partnering with Wegmans to provide children food on the weekends, when they are not benefiting from school lunch programs. The Fill the Backpack program encourages Wegmans shoppers to purchase a prepackaged bag of food that will be donated to FeedMore. The program will continue through Sunday and is expected to be expanded to select feeding sites this summer.
