"Share Our Strength helps keep the focus on what every person can do to end hunger in a country where hunger should never exist. We are very happy to be associated with this organization." - Margaret Sherraden, President, Missouri Association for Social Welfare
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Each year, thirteen million children in the United States are hungry or at risk of hunger. That's why PARADE magazine, the largest-circulation magazine in the U.S., and Share Our Strength will host the first-ever The Great American Bake Sale to support the fight to end childhood hunger in America.
PARADE will launch The Great American Bake Sale with a national cover story on childhood hunger on April 27. The program will continue through July 22, 2003. During this time, all Americans - individuals, church groups, organizations and businesses - are encouraged to register at www.greatamericanbakesale.org and participate by hosting a bake sale in their communities. All funds raised will be donated to Share Our Strength, which will then make grants to innovative nonprofits fighting childhood hunger in the United States. These grants will be made to organizations in the states where funds were raised with a focus on programs that help kids get meals after school and in the summer, when school feeding programs aren't readily available, to high-need areas where access to services is limited and to a national anti-hunger program. Since it was founded in 1984, Share Our Strength has granted nearly $70 million to more than 1,000 of the most innovative and effective anti-hunger programs in America and abroad.
This national fundraising program is made possible through the sponsorship support of ABC Entertainment, Betty Crocker baking products and Tyson Foods, Inc., with additional support provided by Reynolds Consumer Products.
For more information on the The Great American Bake Sale, to register, get recipes and ideas and tips on holding a bake sale, please visit www.greatamericanbakesale.org.
On April 21, Operation Frontline, a program of Share Our Strength, nationally sponsored by Tyson Foods, Inc, will launch its first class in Springdale, Arkansas. Through a partnership with the Ozark Food Bank, Share Our Strength, and Tyson Foods, Inc, more people in northwest Arkansas will learn tools to breaking the cycle of poverty within their means.
For the past three years, Tyson Foods has been the national sponsor of this program that promotes Share Our Strength's long-term solution to fight hunger by providing parents who struggle to feed their families on a low income, the cooking, nutrition and food budgeting skills they need to make healthy and economical food choices.
Operation Frontline unites chefs, nutritionists, and other community leaders to share their strengths by volunteering to teach Operation Frontline classes in their communities. The Ozark Food Bank's Executive Director, Greg Hemphill, has been working for many months to bring this program to his community. With the help of Tyson Foods employees and the local Junior League, Operation Frontline has already begun to gain community support. In addition, Operation Frontline's Hall of Fame chef Chris Huff of EatZi's, will be assisting with the launch on the program in Springdale, Arkansas. Chris has worked in three major Operation Frontline cities and has been a supporter of Share Our Strength for many years.
With the risk of hunger facing 33 million Americans and under-nourishment affecting 840 million people abroad, Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation grants bring vital resources to organizations that provide emergency food assistance and the tools to help people overcome hunger in the long-term. In 2002, over 200 organizations benefited from nearly $5 million in Taste of the Nation grants.
Last year, in the United States and Canada, these organizations:
Distributed 1 billion pounds of food.
Taught over 17,000 nutrition education classes to low-income children and adults.
Graduated 7,500 people from job-training programs.
Advocated and educated the public to improve services for over 4 million low-income people.
Internationally, Share Our Strength supported the community development efforts of 11 organizations working in Ecuador, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, and Vietnam last year.
The voices of anti-hunger advocates rang a little louder at this year's National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference from February 23-25 in Washington, DC. With the help of conference sponsor Food Research & Action Center (FRAC), Share Our Strength identified seven key leaders to receive free round-trip transportation to the conference on Delta Air Lines. The flight credits were raised though Delta's charitable mileage donation program and were granted to leaders from Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee who, due to budgetary constraints, might otherwise have been unable to attend.
The annual conference brings together advocates and providers from anti-hunger and anti-poverty groups, as well as nutrition, health, immigrant, education, and children's organizations. This year's agenda focused on plans to expand the use of child nutrition programs and strategies to successfully implement the Farm Bill food stamp provisions. For more information on FRAC, visit www.frac.org. To donate Delta SkyMiles to Share Our Strength, email delta.bids@delta-air.com.
Taste of the Nation, presented by American Express and Jenn-AirŪ, is the nation's preeminent culinary benefit supporting the fight to end hunger. This year's events are in 65 cities across the United States and Canada, and run from March through August. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit http://www.strength.org/see/taste.
Hartford, CT April 10
Sarasota, FL April 10
Winnipeg, MB April 13 (seated dinner)
Chicago, IL April 14
Pittsburgh, PA April 14
Manchester, NH April 14
Northern New Jersey April 14
Worcester, MA April 14
Winnipeg, MB April 15 (tasting)
Milwaukee, WI April 21
Wilmington, DE April 24
Detroit, MI April 27
Houston, TX April 27
St. Louis, MO April 27
East Hampton, NY April 27
Greenville, SC April 27
Sioux Falls, SD April 27
Princeton, NJ April 28
Lynchburg, VA April 28
Portland, OR April 28
Ocean County, NJ April 29
Charlottesville, VA April 30
Pioneer Valley, MA April 30
Boston, MA May 1
Fairfield County, CT May 1
Fort Collins, CO May 1
Toledo, OH May 4
Boulder, CO May 4
New Orleans, LA May 8
Birmingham, AL May 12
Providence, RI May 13
New Haven, CT May 14
Philadelphia, PA May 15
Dallas, TX May 15
Chef2Chef News Desk