“Food From The Heart” Food Drive Collected 65.5 Tons

The Seventh Annual “Food From The Heart” food drive held March 21, 2015 at participating Midlands grocery stores to support Harvest Hope Food Bank collected 65.5 tons of food

COLUMBIA, SC – The seventh annual “Food From the Heart” food drive held Saturday, March 21, 2015 at participating local grocery stores in Richland and Lexington Counties was a huge success. Volunteers from Shandon Baptist and Northside Baptist Churches collected 131,031 pounds of food.   This local mission food drive organized and worked by over 700 volunteer church members positioned themselves outside stores to offer shoppers the opportunity to take a red “Food from The Heart” grocery bag and participate by purchasing as few or as many products off a list of suggested items. The bags were collected outside the stores and taken to Harvest Hope Food Bank where church volunteers sorted the items. Food collections will be distributed to local food pantries and soup kitchens. One hundred percent of all goods collected will benefit men, women and children in the Midlands.

To help end hunger in our South Carolina communities and bring more meals to tables of struggling families and children, Harvest Hope joins with Feeding America to pledge their One Goal of providing 26.7 million meals to South Carolinians every year by 2018. Harvest Hope distributed more than 28 million of food across 20 counties in 2014, the equivalent of 21,500,000 meals. For many who struggle daily with hunger, food provided by Harvest Hope gets them through a tough or uncertain time until they can restore balance to their lives.

According the Food Research and Action Center, South Carolina has one of the highest rates of food hardship in the nation for families, with 14 % of our state uncertain if they will have enough to eat from day to day. South Carolina ranks 5^th in the nation for childhood poverty, with 28% of children living in poverty across the state.