After 16 years of being the driving force of donations and community involvement, East Alabama Food Bank acknowledges Walmart with a resolution.
“We really needed to let the community know just what a tremendous impact Walmart has,” said Martha Henk, the executive director of the food bank.
The resolution is dated May 18 and accounts the many deeds that Walmart does for the food bank. Along with Henk and other staff members the mayors of Opelika and Auburn were there to help present Walmart with this resolution.
The East Alabama Food Bank supports at least seven counties in the Alabama region and of those counties 66,090 people are food insecure. The food bank is middle man distributing food to local food pantries and soup kitchens in communities. In a month’s time the food bank impacts more than 30,200 people. “The only way were able to have that kind of outreach is having community support and that’s where Walmart comes in,” Henk said.
In the past 10 years, the Walmart Distribution Center accounts for 7.4 million meals. “We believe in community involvement,” said Bill Conner, the assistant general manager. They give grants to the food bank and volunteers through their company Volunteerism Always Pays. In addition to these works, senior management team member of WDC, Jeff Bowen serves on the board for the East Alabama Food Bank.
“they have an enormous impact on our food bank’s ability to feed hungry people,” said Henk. Last year the WDC donated 77 percent of 407 tons fresh produce, which serves as importance because Alabama is ranked first in diabetes, second in obesity and third in hypertension. Poor diets correlate to this. That same year 48 percent of the food bank’s inventory came from WDC, Walmart Supercenters and Sam’s Club.
The East Alabama Food Bank is just one of 200 foodbanks across the US and Walmart plays a part in them all.
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