The Chattanooga Area Food Bank has received a $7,800 grant from Cargill that will help fuel funding towards its food safety program and make improvements to the food bank’s facility, a component of moving more a million pounds of food per month within the community.
This initiative helps ensure low-income families in the Chattanooga are have a readily accessible source of safe, healthy and nutritious food to help feed their families, said officials.
"We are proud and grateful to stand shoulder to shoulder with Cargill and its employees in the fight against hunger," said Maeghan Jones, CAFB president. "With one in six adults and one in four children in our area struggling with hunger, we know that we can't solve the problem alone and need great partners. What’s wonderful about this award is that we are able to make critical investments in improving our food bank’s facility which is a testament to our work and our partnership."
The local award is part of Cargill’s partnership with Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity and Chattanooga Area Food Bank. In total, Cargill has committed more than $11 million since 2009 for the Feeding America network of food banks to distribute millions of meals to children and families across all 50 states.
As part of that initiative, Cargill has invested dollars in Feeding America’s food safety initiatives, like independent audits and improvement grants at food banks, and to source diverse food streams such as produce, and manufactured product. Improved food safety practices are not only vital for the health and safety of clients, but also help to attract the more than three billion pounds of food that Feeding America distributes each year, said officials.
According to the USDA, about 49 million people – including 16 million children – struggle with hunger. Here in the 20-county service region, about 160,000 struggle with hunger.