You really can make a difference this holiday season

Most people donate food to charity through food drives in schools, places of worship and social organizations. I recall going door to door in our neighborhood collecting donations for our school's food drive as a young child. At the time, I was motivated to win the school's contest for collecting the most food (which I did). Today, I actively support the cause of feeding the hungry for more pressing reasons, particularly in our local community.

Several years ago, I had my first meeting with our local food pantry's director, who opened my eyes to the reality of families going without nutritious food, even within a handful of miles from my home. Our community's charity meets the emergency needs of about 100 families every day.

Unfortunately, there are times of the year that the food pantry has to ration its distributions due to a lack of sufficient donations. This shocked me. So I began my own little campaign in my community to teach people how to use grocery coupons to buy food for our charity at virtually no cost. I called it "Cut Out Hunger." Over the years that concept has grown nationally and has helped generate tons of food donations. I have appreciated the shoppers who are bringing the "Cut Out Hunger" concept to where they live.

So it really caught my attention when I read in Progressive Grocer Magazine that Second Harvest, a national hunger organization, awarded Kroger with the "Retailer of the Year" award for their donation of 30 million pounds of food in 2006 to support food banks across the country. That's the equivalent of about 30 million cans of food or boxes of pasta.

Wow!

Kroger also worked with food manufacturers to offer shoppers a program called "Bringing Hope to the Table" that gave a small donation to the cause when shoppers purchased participating items marked with special shelf tags. Over the past two years, those small donations raised $6 million to support local food banks with financial needs.

Many grocery stores and food manufacturers donate surplus food and grocery items that would otherwise go unsold rather than having to throw food away. In fact, the Second Harvest Website, www.secondharvest.org, states that it distributes 2 billion pounds of food and grocery products via its network of more than 200 food banks across all states. Its primary source of donations comes from its food and supermarket partners.

I didn't realize until a few years ago that there are many minor reasons why food products are not suitable for retail sale, even though they are perfectly nutritious. For example, if a food manufacturer changes the packaging or label design of a product, the new product design takes the place of the unsold product on the shelf. If the older product does not sell in time, the easiest way to deal with the product is to throw it away. However, due to the organized reclamation efforts of the supermarkets, these perfectly useful products go to charities that help clients in need.

The Second Harvest site lists other grocery donors, which includes several supermarket chains in addition to Kroger, including Big Lots, CVS/Pharmacy, Food Lion, Publix, Safeway, Sam's Club, Supervalu, Target, Wal-Mart and Walgreens. The site lists dozens of food manufacturers that are food donors, as well. Supermarkets that are not listed on the Second Harvest site most likely support other hunger organizations, as hunger relief efforts are generally the number one charitable effort by every supermarket chain.

It takes a great deal of effort and work on the part of the supermarkets to gather, store safely, and transport 2 billion pounds of food from thousands of supermarkets to thousands of food pantries across the country. Thanks to the generous donation of time, money and products by these supermarkets, millions of families and individuals in need will be fed.