Our plan to raise awareness was simple: we gave people 15 days to make a promise to help end hunger in their community.  Every person who promised triggered a “donation” of a digital can to their state.  At the end of the Digital Can Drive, the ten states having the most digital cans each received a semi-truckload of food from Tyson Foods.

To create even great awareness during the delivery phase, we worked with each local recipient food bank to tell the story of hunger in their community.  If you haven’t already, be sure to read these humbling, encouraging stories.  We think these ten stories are one of the best things to come out our efforts.  Here they are:

Connecticut

Idaho

Indiana

Missouri

New York

Oklahoma

Oregon

Tennessee

Vermont

Wisconsin

“Due to the recent changes in the economy, we have seen more middle-class families seeking out assistance. For example, a middle-class family of six came in for assistance. The mother was employed as a LPN and the father who had been employed as an airplane mechanic was recently laid off unexpectedly. The family had depleted all of their savings and the mother sought out food assistance. The mother was very grateful for the amount of food that we were able to assist her family with.” – Partner Agency

More than 500,000 Oklahomans struggle with hunger on a daily basis. Without the support of corporate partners like Tyson Foods, organizations like the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma and the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma would not have the resources to keep up with the growing demand. Both food banks have seen significant increases in food distribution over the last year and know that there are still people who are going without.

We have seen the face of hunger change over the last several years. No longer is it strictly the unemployed. More often than not, it’s the working poor or the newly unemployed. Families are working multiple jobs just to make ends meet and keep food on the table. Senior citizens living on fixed incomes have to decide between paying for prescription medicine or buying groceries. Children are rushing the lunch line at school on Monday after surviving another weekend with little or no food at home.

When a teacher at a local elementary school recently asked her students what they had for dinner the night before, one little girl responded that she hadn’t eaten dinner last night because it wasn’t her “turn.” She and her siblings actually take turns eating dinner in order to have enough food to last the week.

The Oklahoma Food Bank Network provides enough food to feed more than 137,000 people each week through a network of more than 1,150 partner agencies and elementary schools throughout the state – and yet it is still not enough. More than 12,700 chronically hungry elementary school children are receiving a backpack filled with nutritious, kid-friendly food to sustain them over weekends and holidays when school meal programs are not available.

The Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma and the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma are the largest private hunger-relief organizations in the state. The Food Banks are by far the single most important source of food for most Oklahoma hunger relief agencies – accounting for 65% of the food used by food pantries, soup kitchens and emergency shelters. Together they help feed the more than 500,000 Oklahomans who struggle with hunger every day, including one in five of all children in the state.

Tyson Foods, through wecanendthis.com, has demonstrated how people united by a common cause can make a difference. Together we can continue “Fighting Hunger…Feeding Hope” in Oklahoma and across the country.

“We have seen people in tears at the mobile pantries, so thankful for food. I have heard people with master’s degrees say that they never thought they would need free food.” – Anthony Crow, Pastor, Silver Point Baptist Church Putnam County Tennessee

The face of hunger in Tennessee looks like your neighbor, your child’s best friend, the woman who gives you your coffee at Starbucks in the morning, and the man selling newspapers by your office every day. It could be the coworker you sat next to who was laid off last month or the new mother at the doctor’s office you saw last week. Hunger impacts one in six Tennesseans, and with those numbers, it is likely you’ve seen someone today who will be going hungry tonight.

In Tennessee, the numbers are what drive us to meet a need that continues to rise each year. One in five children in the state are at risk for hunger. In Middle Tennessee alone, Second Harvest Food Bank provides more than 213,000 emergency food boxes annually. The need for food assistance has risen 36% over the past five years. Of those receiving services from Second Harvest Food Bank, 32% of them have had to choose between purchasing food and paying for medicine.

And the one number that is most important to us, what drives our staff and volunteers and supporters every day, the number that means we have done everything that can be done, the only number that is acceptable in the state of Tennessee is ZERO. Zero families having to choose between paying the mortgage and placing food on the table. Zero seniors wondering where their next meal will come from after they’ve had to spend their monthly social security check on medicine and utility bills. Zero children coming to school underfed and starved for nutrition because there was little or no food for them over the weekend. Zero mothers and fathers going without dinner so their kids will not have to go to bed with an empty stomach. Zero hungry people in the state of Tennessee.

It is reprehensible that anyone in a country with such abundance of resources should not have enough food to eat. In our state, Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, along with four other Feeding America food banks work with hundreds of community food partners across Tennessee to distribute meals to those who are in need. It is a task that takes many individuals, organizations and local businesses to accomplish. This support from the communities we serve helps us take larger, stronger, faster steps toward that goal of zero.

The truckload of food donated from Tyson is a huge step forward in feeding so many families in our state. Donations of nutritious protein are often difficult to come by and are especially important for children who are still growing and need the nutrients for proper physical and mental development.

We are grateful for the support of everyone who donated a digital can during the “We Can End This” campaign and for the initiative of Cause Shift and Tyson Foods to make hunger relief a priority across the country.

On behalf of Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, the thousands of children, seniors, families and individuals we serve, THANK YOU for making a difference in the fight against hunger!

“Times are tough. I’ve been unemployed for over a year. Even though I wish I didn’t need help, I do. I have a grandson to feed, and it’s wonderful to have support from Second Harvest.”
- Mary R., Lewis County Mobile Pantry

Hi, we are a family of 5, 3 children (two teenagers and a toddler) and 2 adults. I am no longer working and we have been hit with garnishments because we have fallen behind. We are NOT in need of a thanksgiving dinner but our shelves are very bare and sandwiches meat and potato’s are even tough to buy right now. Can you please help? My wife is the only income in the home she takes home around 1100 each month, we have a 400 garnishment that will not be completed till March. Thankfully I have had some help from my parents but we are behind on gas, electric, car ins, rent payments, car payments. Hopefully we can get some assistance from your organization with food. Thank you.

Signed S.R.

This is typical of the letters we receive at The Idaho Foodbank. Families overcome with medical problems, parents laid off work, people who work two and three jobs to try to make ends meet. Thousands of Idaho families need food assistance every year. And now, people who used to donate have become recipients.

These situations are what drives The Idaho Foodbank. As an independent nonprofit organization, the Foodbank has served Idaho families for 26 years. During that time, we have worked with a network of independent partner agencies to distribute more than 85 million pounds of free emergency food to individuals and families in need. This network of over 200 partner agencies consists of emergency food pantries, community kitchens, shelters and programs that collectively work together to relieve hunger in Idaho.

More than a statewide distribution system, The Idaho Foodbank provides important services like the Backpack Program, Mobile Pantry, Grocery Alliance, Picnic in the Park (summer feeding) and Idaho Community Gardens. These programs fill the gaps which are otherwise unmet in communities that may lack resources to assist families and children in need. Combined, our food distribution network feeds 119,000 people a month in a state with a population of 1.5 million.

The Idaho Foodbank is wholly dependent upon donations received by individuals, corporate sponsors, grants and partnerships with local, state, and national donors to raise the food and funds needed to provide food to the network. As a member of Feeding America, The Idaho Foodbank is able to leverage donations it receives to acquire food at a rate of four pounds for every dollar received and to provide two meals for each dollar. Similar to the Idaho Foodbank’s network, Feeding America acts as a hub to over more than 200 partner independent food banks throughout the United States.

In Hunger in Idaho 2010, the largest hunger study ever conducted in the state, the Foodbank found:

• 47% of those who access emergency food in Idaho report having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel
• 34% had to choose between paying for food and paying their rent or mortgage
• 34% had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care
• 37% had to choose between paying for food and paying for transportation
• 49% had to choose between paying for food and paying for gas for a car

During these uncertain times, more and more Idahoans are seeking emergency food assistance, many for the first time. Some of these new recipients were donors just a short time ago. With financial hardships and a difficult economy, for some Idahoans The Idaho Foodbank network is their only option. Many of the individuals and families that utilize the network many of them have offered up some of their stories and shared how hunger has affected them and how.

We rely on the food bank to get us through the month, if we didn’t have that resource there would be times when I wouldn’t have anything to feed my family, thank you so much.

Signed J.C.

Everything we do and all the lives we touch are made possible by individuals like you, and partnerships such as this one with Tyson and those within each community we serve. It takes a community coming together to make a real difference and lift up our friends one meal at a time. Wecanendthis and CauseShift have set a great example of how, when we unite, we can make a change and truly understand the meaning of how Hunger Affects Everyone!

Donations of nutritious food and protein are especially difficult for food banks to find. The Tyson truck load of beef, chicken and pork is a veritable goldmine for our partners. Think of how many people will enjoy a mouthwatering meal with meat as the main course! On behalf of these families, seniors, and children who will enjoy a delicious meal, ‘thank you’ for supporting the campaign. It’s proof that, together, “WeCanEndThis.”

The Idaho Foodbank,

Leading the effort to end hunger in Idaho

Dear Food Bank,

Please help. My daughter and her family struggle just to scrape up enough for rent, let alone be able to buy food. Her husband works long hours and he was just informed that because of a missing certificate his pay will be reduced significantly until the dispute is resolved. His wages support a family of five. I am in California so my help is limited, though I did pay the car payment and the rent last month.

In 2000, my oldest granddaughter had open-heart surgery at 3 months of age. In April of 2001 my daughter was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare neurological cancer. Then my granddaughter had to be rushed to Salt Lake for a pacemaker because Boise does not have the facilities to perform the procedure. Because of these health issues my daughter was fired from her job at a local hospital because she missed so much work. The children have no health insurance because their income is over 300.00 a month and he is not eligible for insurance until he has been employed for a year which will not be until April.

The medical expenses have strapped everyone. They don’t ask for anything but I am asking for your help. They could use some food to hold them over for the holidays. Can you help them please?

Desperate Grandmother

What is meal time like at your house? For many of us it’s a time of abundance and of sharing with family and friends. Now imagine that you’re unemployed and looking for work, or working at a low-paying job without benefits. Every day is a struggle to keep the bills paid and to put food on the table for your family.

For record numbers of people in Oregon and Clark County, Wash., meals are prepared with food from emergency food boxes. Rather than having abundance to share, meal times mean stretching a limited budget as far as possible and sometimes doing without.

Hundreds of new families are walking in the doors of local food pantries … people who have never asked for help before … people who had family-wage jobs, lost jobs and have run out of resources.

People like Bill, from Beaverton.

“Four years ago I was making $150,000 to $180,000 a year,” he says. “I have four kids, one was in college and one was about to go to college. We had a great house, nice cars, the life everyone was hoping for. Then my company shut down. I missed a few house payments. Last August, we lost our house and my car. I never thought that at the age of 54 I would have to move into my mother-in-law’s home.”

While many people are seeking emergency food for the first time, the struggle continues to get worse for our senior citizens on fixed incomes, the disabled and working poor.

Requests for emergency food have reached unprecedented levels throughout Oregon and Clark County, Wash. Each month more than 240,000 people eat meals from emergency food boxes. Of those, households with children face greatest need. 36 percent of those eating meals from emergency food boxes each month are children 18 and under. Childhood hunger isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s dangerous. Children who are hungry have more trouble learning in school, and early childhood hunger and malnutrition can result in irreversible health problems, such as hypertension, diabetes, kidney and heart disease, later in life.

“You’re even more desperate when you have kids,” says Tammy, an emergency food box recipient from Beaver, Ore.

Rhonda describes her struggles as a single parent trying to make ends meet.

“I’ve found that you try to pay the monsters at the door, she says. “You pay the rent, you pay the car insurance. You pay all the other hands and then you pay the fridge. The fridge is always the last thing to be paid.”

Oregon Food Bank works to eliminate hunger and its root causes … because no one should be hungry. Oregon Food Bank serves as the hub of a statewide network of more than 20 regional food banks and 935 hunger-relief agencies throughout Oregon and Clark County, Wash. We also work to address hunger’s root causes through public policy advocacy, and nutrition and garden education programs.

OFB anticipates people in our service area will feel the effects of this recession for the next several years. It takes time for people to get back on their feet once they’ve lost their jobs, their health care and their homes. As we’ve seen in past recessions, some people never recover as the wage gap continues to grow.

That’s why all donations, big and small are so important. We especially appreciate donations of high-quality protein, like Tyson chicken. We thank each member of our community that participated in the WeCanEndThis Campaign, and we thank Tyson Foods for the generous food donation that will make a difference for so many hungry families in our area.

Hunger is on the rise in America despite decades of government programs and private outreach. According to the most recent figures – which are almost two years old — over 49 million Americans suffer from food insecurity; 17 million are children — which prompted President Obama earlier this year to challenge our nation to end childhood hunger by 2015.

To meet this challenge, we need greater awareness, understanding and advocacy of hunger and its implications. And, that requires enhanced collection, organization and utilization of hunger related data in America. While tremendous amounts of data are collected, it is often incomplete, dated and fragmented — accessible only to researchers and policy makers, not the general public or local hunger advocates.

Benefits of a Hunger Data Consortium
A central, holistic source of data that includes data visualizers as modeled below and is accessible to all can provide important benefits to help solve the problem of hunger in America.

Benefits like:

• Identifying and closing information gaps – particularly at the state and local level
• Facilitating the sharing of data – allowing public and private entities and individuals access and utilization of the compiled data
• Initiating analyses and visualizations to raise awareness, introduce new perspectives, hypotheses and solutions
• Creating an eco-system of qualified, comprehensive data that organizations can work with when developing solutions
• Collecting and promoting solutions for peer review and collaboration across sectors to help drive both social and market-driven solutions.

To illustrate how data could be utilized from the Consortium, CauseShift, the strategists leading WeCanEndThis.com, partnered with Jess3, an interactive branding and data visualization firm, to create the  Obesity and Hunger: Partners? info graphic.

Utilizing currently available data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the info graphic looks at the rates of obesity, food insecurity, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) participation and poverty in the 50 states. It shows states with high levels of food insecurity also have high rates of obesity. In addition, 14 states have both higher than the national average rate of food insecurity and obesity. It also suggests that the current levels of SNAP participation are not
high enough to keep food insecurity or obesity at low levels (see Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, Kentucky or Kansas for example)

What Data Can Provoke
While this info graphic doesn’t answer all the questions as to why obesity and hunger are linked – or how strong the links are — visualizing data like this may help policy makers and researchers see the data in a different light and help provoke new thinking and solutions.

For instance:

• Would a deeper understanding of the connections between hunger and obesity spur policy makers to re-write our nation’s food policy?
• Would comprehensive data, down to the local level enhance the ability of advocacy groups and governmental agencies to meet the need where it exists?
• Would the media cover the story differently or in more depth if they had access to this data?
• Would the publication of compelling info graphics generate greater awareness and concern among Americans and prompt them to become more involved in fighting hunger in their community?
• Would an analysis of nutrition, hunger and obesity prompt local communities to incorporate more fresh vegetables and fruits into school feeding programs, install community gardens or resurrect home economics classes?

These types of questions — and more — can be asked and answered with better data, analysis and presentation.

It’s time we stop hoarding data in silos — accessible only to a few. We need to create a Hunger Data Consortium and let everyone and anyone — the government, non-profits, the media and interested individuals — use it to test hypotheses and create new approaches to ending hunger in America.

This post was published originally on the Huffington Post.

Harvesters’ BackSnack program ensured that 10,000 students a week had healthy food to eat on the weekends.

Look around you. In Missouri, hunger is closer than you think. One in eight people in our state will receive emergency food assistance from a food bank this year. These are our friends, our co-workers, our children’s classmates – even our family members.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Missouri ranks 6th out of the 50 states in the number of food insecure households – a top 10 list no one celebrates. This means that 14 percent of the families in our state may not know where their next meal is coming from. In rural communities, suburban neighborhoods and urban centers across Missouri, an alarming number of our neighbors are at risk of not having enough to eat to be healthy.

According to Hunger in America 2010, the most comprehensive study of hunger ever undertaken, as many as 728,000 Missourians annually are struggling to put food on the table. In the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, far too many people face circumstances that are forcing them to choose between buying food and paying for basic necessities such as rent, utilities or medicine. The economy dealt a powerful blow to those already seeking emergency food assistance and sent many others at risk of hunger to local food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters for the first time.

Missouri is served by six food banks, including Harvesters—The Community Food Network, which provides food and hope to those living in 10 counties of northwestern Missouri and 16 counties of northeastern Kansas. In fiscal year 2009, Harvesters distributed more than 35.6 million pounds of food and household products through our network of more than 620 nonprofit agencies, including pantries, kitchens, shelters, day care centers and other hunger relief agencies. Harvesters accomplished this with tremendous support from the community, including nearly 4,000 volunteer visits each month.

In Missouri, the face of hunger is often a family, struggling to make ends meet. Forty-two percent of households served by Missouri food banks include someone who is working. And far too many of those in need are among the most vulnerable in our society – the young and the elderly.

Missouri ranks 5th in the nation in the number of children under age 18 who are food insecure. Of those served by Missouri food banks, 40 percent—more than 291,000 a year—are children under age 18. Ten percent of those served—nearly 73,000 a year—are age 5 and younger. There is a critical connection between childhood nutrition and cognitive and physical development. Even short-term hunger can negatively impact a child’s health, behavior and the ability to concentrate and perform complex tasks.

Harvesters serves children in northwestern Missouri through our network and with special child-oriented programs such as BackSnack. Children who depend on free and subsidized school meals during the week are often hungry on the weekend. The BackSnack program fills that gap by providing elementary students with a backpack full of nutritious food every Friday afternoon. The need is great and the BackSnack program has grown tremendously from serving just 650 students a week three years ago to feeding more than 10,000 a week during past school year.

Elderly and disabled persons are among those most at risk of food insecurity, because they are often less mobile, have health problems and live alone. Seven percent of the people served by food banks in Missouri are elderly. Harvesters reaches many seniors through its network of food pantries and on-site feeding programs. Seniors in northwestern Missouri also are served through Harvesters’ Senior Mobile Pantries, which deliver fresh produce and other nutritious foods to low-income and homebound residents of senior housing sites.

Harvesters mission is to feed the hungry and to provide the most nutritious food available. Nutrition education programs such as Project STRENGTH for low-income adults and Kids in the Kitchen teach about good nutrition and the importance of eating a healthy diet.

As the need for food assistance grows, Harvesters partners with its national affiliate, Feeding America, and with organizations such as the Missouri Food Bank Association to address the larger causes of and responses to hunger at the state and national level.

Harvesters thanks everyone who donated a digital can to Missouri during the WeCanEndThis campaign and salutes its long-time supporter, Tyson Foods, for donating a truckload of much needed protein to provide 150,000 meals to hungry people in our region.

Fulfilling our mission – to feed hungry people today and work to end hunger tomorrow –
is possible only with everyone’s support. Working together, we CAN do this!

Last July, a single mother with four children began attending Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin’s Mobile Pantry Marshall-Waterloo. She has found it a struggle to provide enough food for her growing children with her own resources. The mobile pantry occurs right after she is finished working, but first, she walks home, as she doesn’t have a car, to gather her two children and two empty strollers the kids have outgrown to fill with food. At the mobile pantry, the kids are so excited about all the food and want to hold it in their arms to make sure its gets home. They thank the volunteers for providing the food each time they visit the mobile pantry.

This family’s story is like so many others in Wisconsin: hardworking people aren’t able to make ends meet. Through Second Harvest Foodbank’s partnerships with food pantries, meal sites and shelters, and also through the administration of programs such as Mobile Pantries, the Foodbank ensures our neighbors have access to food and don’t have to choose, for example, whether they’ll eat or pay their mortgage.

We all think we’ve experienced hunger – our stomachs growl, we grab a snack to hold us over until our next meal or just tough it out until dinnertime. But real hunger is an uneasy or painful feeling that results from unwillingly going for an extended period of time without adequate food to sustain health and strength

Food, along with clothing and shelter, is the most basic human need, and yet so many people in southwestern Wisconsin served by the Foodbank truly don’t know from where their next meal will come. These families, children and seniors aren’t able to obtain nutritionally adequate and safe foods in socially acceptable ways to sustain active, healthy lives.

Over the last two years, the partner food pantries, shelters, meal sites and other agencies served by Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin reported an increased year-round need for food assistance. To quantify this, the Foodbank was one of 185 that participated in the national Hunger in America 2010 study conducted for Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.

The study reports Second Harvest Foodbank is serving 83% more people than in 2006. This means we now serve 140,600 individuals–43% of whom are children. That’s 22,700 people receiving emergency assistance in any given week. Of those served by Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin:
• 43% are children under 18 years old; 10% are children 0-5 years of age.
• 3% are elderly.
• 7% are homeless.
• 54% of households include at least one employed adult.
• 60% of households have incomes below the official federal poverty level.
• 75% have at least a high school education.
• 93% are U.S. citizens.

While we wish we could say the worst is behind us, we cannot. Elaine Waxman, Director of Social Policy Research at Feeding America, reports, “What we know from studying earlier recessions is that unemployment is a lagging indicator…and poverty lags unemployment by one or two years at a minimum. We’re not likely to get back to the poverty rates we saw pre-recession for at least the next 10 years.”

Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin is looking at four key areas to address this unprecedented need. While confident in our approach to get more food in, we’re addressing how to distribute this additional food and refining strategies to effectively pinpoint places within our 16-county service area that need more assistance. We are increasing the number of mobile pantries, adding more sites for our BackPack and Kids Cafe programs to serve youth and increasing FoodShare Wisconsin (food stamps) outreach to boost eligible families’ food budgets and ability to access more food at grocers. And, the Foodbank continues to mobilize the public to give funds, food, time and voice toward ending hunger in southwestern Wisconsin.

Thank you to Tyson Foods and the WeCanEndThis.com campaign, and to all of you reading this for learning more about hunger in Wisconsin. Together, we can end this!

The phones ring constantly at Foodlink. I am not envious of our receptionist’s job. We receive hundreds of phone calls each week asking an array of questions. Within the last year the most common question asked over the phone is, “where can I get emergency food assistance?” followed up with an explanation that usually tugs at your heart strings. The economic downturn has increased the number of people experiencing food insecurity from urban to suburban communities nationwide.

New York State follows the national trend. The Feeding America network member food banks have experienced a rise in demand.  Statewide, 2.3 million residents rely on emergency food assistance annually. That breaks down to approximately 570,000 different people that turn to New York food banks’ network of agencies for emergency food assistance weekly. Emergency food programs include food pantries, soup kitchens, and emergency shelters serving short term residents. Among all client households that receive emergency food 70% are food insecure, 31% of which have very low food security.

State findings from Hunger in America 2010:

• 37% of the members of households in New York are children under 18 years old
• 6% of the members of households are children age 0 to 5 years
• 8% of the members of households are elderly
• About 23% of clients are non-Hispanic white, 42% are non-Hispanic black, 27% are Hispanic, and the rest are from other racial groups
• 36% of households include at least one employed adult
• 66% have incomes below the federal poverty level
• 7% are homeless

Economic hardships have caused many clients to make unwanted choices. Deciding between food and other necessities such as mortgage or rent payments, utilities, medical bills and transportation has become a sad reality.

Statewide findings from Hunger In America 2010:

• 40% of clients in New York report having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel
• 39% had to choose between paying for food and paying their rent or mortgage
• 29% had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care
• 34% had to choose between paying for food and paying for transportation
• 14% had to choose between paying for food and paying for gas for a car

Locally, 10% or 125,000 people in our service area receive emergency food assistance annually. Within this statistic 36% of our clients are under the age of 18. This percentile is consistent with state and national findings.

This increase in demand has increased the need for food donations as well as volunteer hours. We are fortunate to have a service area filled with reliable compassionate volunteers and philanthropists.  Annually, thousands of volunteers donate 20,000 hours to assist in food sorting, categorizing and packing. Without our volunteers we wouldn’t be able to operate and facilitate the increase our network of agencies is facing. The poundage we receive through food drives have increased significantly over the past year which has allowed us to increase the amount of food that reaches our agencies.

Local findings from Hunger In America 2010:

• 36% of the members of households served by Foodlink, Inc are children under 18 years old
• 9% of the members of  households are children age 0 to 5 years
• 5% of the members of households are elderly
• About 49% of clients are non-Hispanic white, 37% are non-Hispanic black, 11% are Hispanic, and the rest are from other racial groups
• 26% of households include at least one employed adult
• 82% have incomes below the federal poverty level
• 7% are homeless

Last year Foodlink distributed over 10 million pounds of food to a network of 450 agencies in a ten county service area.  Though foodlink is a food bank and our key operation is the redistribution of food, we also have an innovative network of initiatives. We educate and train our clients on nutrition as well as provide resources for them to become self sufficient. We have an array of child nutrition programs; Kids Cafe, Summer Meals and BackPack Programs that provide nutritious foods to at risk youth.

Our  delivery with Tyson Foods is in conjunction with our Annual Summer Meals Kick-Off with the Rochester Rhinos Soccer Team.

When school is out during the summer, many children no longer have access to free or reduced priced school meals. The USDA Summer Food Service Program is intended to fill this gap, but many families do not know this program is available to all Rochester children. Last summer, Foodlink served over 50,000 meals at 40 different site locations throughout the city. This year we already have over 50 sites registered for summer meals.  Freshwise Catering, our food service entity, raises the bar on institutional food by preparing meals with lean meats, whole grains, and fresh produce from local vendors.  Summer Meals with the Rhinos will showcase the importance  healthy food while educating Rochester’s children on health, fitness and wellness.

Recently, a study released by the United Way stated that 40% of Rochester’s youth live below the poverty line. Foodlink believes the WeCanEndThis Campaign, and all of its partners – especially Tyson Foods, play a vital role in helping end not only hunger but childhood hunger.

Food banks of New York State:

• Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York: Latham, NY
• City Harvest: New York City, NY
• Food Bank of Western New York: Buffalo, NY
• Food Bank for New York City: New York City, NY
• Food Bank of Central New York: East Syracuse, NY
• Food Bank of the Southern Tier: Elmira, NY
• Long Island Cares, Inc: Hauppauge, NY
• Island Harvest: Mineola, NY
• Food Bank for Westchester, Inc.: Millwood, NY

After reviewing the sixty ideas submitted to the CauseLab idea contest, we have decided on the winners for Best Idea and the Best Collaborator.  Here’s the story as told in collaboration with our partners at Goodzuma.

Best Idea: Gap Calculator by JC Dwyer
Gap Calculator asks us to better measure the hunger need in America and identify existing resources as the first steps toward a solution.  The Gap Calculator would allow us to answer the questions:

• Where is the need?
• How much food will we need to fill the gap?
• And, where will the food come from?

Functionally, the gap calculator combines data from multiple sources into an equation representing the totality of hunger relief in America. The equation can then be compared to need estimates calculated according to specific geographies. The ability to customize the Gap Calculator will show people how they can help end hunger in their own communities and its shareability will ensure that it is both a tool for empowerment and awareness.

JC Dwyer currently resides in San Antonio, TX and has worked with a variety of anti-hunger organizations and is the voice behind @TexansvsHunger on Twitter.  He told us that the inspiration for his idea comes from a quote he heard from New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg and paraphrased from the famous management guru Peter Drucker:

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” – Mayor Mike Bloomberg

Honorable Mention: Family-to-Family by Pam Koner
The CauseLab was also an opportunity to highlight ideas that are already being implemented in the real world. For the past eight years, Family-to-Family has operated on the simple premise of connecting families with more to those with less.  Pam Koner and her all-volunteer team have launched a number of successful online family-to-family programs that have built greater empathy and understanding.  Here are but just a few of their programs:

Family Sponsorships – The program that started it all, families make a yearlong commitment of $31.21 per month to provide 7 dinner-type meals (including fruits & vegetables).

Birthdays in a Box – Families can help provide a mother with the supplies to throw her child a birthday party – something that isn’t always possible when times are tough.

Victory Garden Project – For those seeking to help in a more sustaining way, this program outfits a family in need with the tools and supplies to plant a garden of their own (including chickens) with the help of a local master gardener.

Building on their success, the Family-to-Family website is undergoing a major update that will be completed by the fall and will make it possible to scale their programs significantly.  Keep on the lookout for them — you might see their work in helping families in the Gulf Coast affected by the oil spill.

Best Collaborator: Shereen Brown
Great ideas come from the minds of people working together.  Not only did Shereen Brown submit three of her own ideas, she invested time and energy in helping to improve the ideas other contestants submitted. Shereen is from Boston, MA, and volunteers with all types of organizations and describes herself as someone who is “in tune to what is happening and what needs to happen for social change to occur.”