Healthy food for local food banks:
By Diana Crane, Community Relations Manager
This article was originally published in November 2006
(November 2006) — Hunger is the problem. PCC has been part of the solution for 19 years. Help for the hungry is just one of many ways that PCC cares for the communities it serves throughout the year.
Under PCC’s Food Bank Program, every cent donated by shoppers is designated for the wholesale purchase of nutritious bulk food. Volunteers re-package the food for distribution through local food banks in neighborhoods served by PCC.
The program works because it’s simple: small donations of money and time, multiplied by hundreds of caring PCC shoppers, adds up to providing nutritious food for thousands of hungry families.
Donate the difference
PCC has made it even simpler to support our food banks by offering a new donation option. Shoppers now have three different ways to make cash donations to PCC’s Food Bank Program: They can contribute amounts of their choice online or at the check stand as always, but now they also just can say, “Donate the difference” when their grocery bill is totaled.
Offering to donate the difference authorizes the cashier to round up the purchase total to the next even dollar amount and automatically allocate the difference to PCC’s Food Bank Program via a key on the register. For example, a purchase totaling $48.19 would be rounded up to $49.00 and $.81 would be donated. The donated amount would be printed on the purchase receipt so shoppers have a record of how much they’ve given during each shopping trip.
Less than a dime per serving
Even 81 cents goes a long way and is enough to buy a pound or more of nutrient-dense brown rice, lentils, beans, cereal, pasta or soup mix for a family in need. When prepared, each of these foods yields 10 or more servings, which means that it costs less than a dime to put a serving of healthy food on a hungry neighbor’s plate.
Last year, PCC shopper contributions purchased more than 69,000 pounds of food for local food banks, supplying almost one million servings of nutritious foods.
This past spring, PCC opened its eighth store in Redmond and expanded its food bank program to include the Hopelink/Redmond Food Bank. Not surprisingly, PCC volunteers have responded enthusiastically, generously giving their time at work parties to package bulk food for Redmond-area recipients.
Additional cash donations, especially during the holiday season, are needed to support this new partnership and to keep PCC’s Food Bank Program as healthy as the food it provides. Through online or in-store donations, shoppers now have several easy options for making a big difference in reducing hunger in our communities.