Smithfield's Helping Hungry Homes tour made the 20th stop on its 2016 nationwide hunger-relief tour on Aug. 4 to donate more than 25,000 pounds of protein to Oregon Food Bank. Smithfield partnered with Safeway to make the donation, which will provide more than 100,000 servings to communities throughout Oregon, where one in five people suffer from food insecurity.
When making the presentation, speakers discussed the importance of donations like this in Oregon communities, where 32 percent of food bank assistance recipients are children who depend on school lunch programs throughout the year.
"Meats are high in protein and important for a nutritious diet, especially for growing children," said Katie Pearmine, Oregon Food Bank's strategic sourcing manager. "We are grateful for this donation from Smithfield since meat is one of the most costly and in-demand items."
Helping Hungry Homes, now in its eighth year, is Smithfield's coast-to-coast campaign to help Americans become more food secure. This year, the program will help fight hunger through more than 30 large-scale protein donations to food banks across the United States totaling more than 3.5 million servings. To date, Helping Hungry Homes has provided more than 40 million servings of protein to food banks across America.
