CHARITY PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

To Be Of Service To Others Is The Greatest Work There Is

FEEDING AMERICA

Making A Difference | Making An Impact | Making A Problem Go Away

Our team at RickBatson.com is committed to helping nonprofits change the world for good. Our Charity Partnership Project allows us the opportunity to help by donating 10% of the revenue from all seminars and public speaking engagements over to a preselected charitable organization.

The Ultimate Network: $1 provides 10 meals through a nationwide network of food banks!

We have proudly joined with Feeding America and its national network of member food bank operations as our official Charity Partner. 

Feeding America is able to invest an astonishing 98 cents of every dollar donated directly into programs that help people across the country access the food they need to live an active, healthy life. The Feeding America network provides food to more than 46.5 million people facing hunger in the United States, including 12 million children and 7 million seniors.  Feeding America secures nearly 4 billion pounds of food annually, which provides 3.3 billion meals directly to individuals and families in need of food.

About Feeding America

The mission of Feeding America is to feed America’s hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and to engage our country in the fight to end hunger. For 35 years, Feeding America has responded to the hunger crisis in America by providing food to people in need through a nationwide network of food banks. 

A Remarkable Historical Background

The concept of food banking was developed by John van Hengel in Phoenix, AZ in the late 1960s. Van Hengel, a retired businessman, had been volunteering at a soup kitchen trying to find food to serve the hungry. One day, he met a desperate mother who regularly rummaged through grocery store garbage bins to find food for her children. She suggested that there should be a place where, instead of being thrown out, discarded food could be stored for people to pick up—similar to the way “banks” store money for future use. With that need and idea, an industry was born.

Van Hengel established St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, AZ as the nation’s first food bank. In its initial year, van Hengel and his team of volunteers distributed 275,000 pounds of food to people in need. Word of the food bank’s success quickly spread, and states began to take note. By 1977, food banks had been established in 18 cities across the country.

As the number of food banks began to increase, van Hengel created a national organization for food banks and in 1979 he established Second Harvest, which was later called America’s Second Harvest the Nation’s Food Bank Network. In 2008, the network changed its name to Feeding America to better reflect the mission of the organization.

Today, Feeding America is the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization—a powerful and efficient network of 200 food banks across the country. As food insecurity rates hold steady at the highest levels ever, the Feeding America network of food banks has risen to meet the need. The organization has fed 46.5 million people at risk of hunger, including 12 million children and seven million seniors.

How Does a Food Bank Operate Generally?

A food bank is a non-profit organization that collects and distributes food to hunger relief charities. Food banks act as food storage and distribution depots for smaller front line agencies; and usually do not themselves give out food directly to people struggling with hunger.

Food usually comes from various sources in the food industry, like grocery stores and wholesalers that have thousands of pounds of food to give away - food that would otherwise be thrown away.

Food banks are found in most larger communities and rely on donors and volunteers to carry out their day-to-day operations. Food banks in the U.S. are very diverse -- from small operations serving people spread out across large rural areas to very large facilities that store and distribute many millions of pounds of food each year, and everything in between.

The Feeding America Food Bank Network

Feeding America is a nationwide network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs that provides food and services to people each year. It constitutes the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief organization. The network serves virtually every community in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico.

The process of getting food to hungry Americans requires a dynamic infrastructure and sophisticated management. Feeding America secures donations from national food and grocery manufacturers, retailers, shippers, packers and growers and from government agencies and other organizations. Feeding America then moves donated food and grocery product to member food banks.

The food banks in turn distribute food and grocery items through food pantries and meal programs that serve families, children, seniors and others at risk of hunger.

Where is Feeding America located and where are the Food Banks?

Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois Feeding America employs almost 200 people in its national office, its Washington, D.C. office and across the country to serve the needs of the people it helps and to support its network of member food banks.

At present there are 200 Feeding America Food Banks that serve every large area of the United States as well as serving smaller local communities.