Last updated on January 11th, 2017 at 02:48 pm
Eight-store Oklahoma-based grocer Crest Foods once again “took a swing” at childhood hunger in Oklahoma, raising $80,000 from its 28th annual golf tournament, held at Oak Tree Golf & Country Club in Edmond last year. The funds will support the Regional Food Bank’s Food for Kids Backpack Program and provide weekend food for chronically hungry school children. A semi-truck full of Tyson chicken breasts also was donated through the tournament.
“No child should have to worry about where their next meal will come from,” said Crest owner Bruce Harroz.
With the help of companies like Crest, the Regional Food Bank says it is able to provide enough food to feed 126,000 Oklahomans each week, 37 percent of whom are children.
“One in four children in Oklahoma struggles with hunger,” said Katie Fitzgerald, CEO of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. “This donation from Crest will support 400 of children in the Food for Kids Backpack Program.”
The Regional Food Bank started the Food for Kids Backpack Program in January 2003 in response to hearing a first-hand account of an Oklahoma City elementary student who fainted on a Monday morning while waiting in the school lunch line due to lack of food over the weekend. The program provides a backpack of kid-friendly, shelf-stable and nutritious food to sustain children over weekends and school holidays.
In the 10 years that the Regional Food Bank has partnered with Crest, the grocer has donated a $493,795 and more than one million pounds of food to fight hunger in the state.
