Wal-Mart donating 70 million meals

From a Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. press release:

With the Thanksgiving season upon us, Walmart today announced that its Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets will partner with Feeding America, the nation’s largest charitable hunger-relief organization, to provide an estimated 90 million pounds of food annually – the equivalent of 70 million meals – to families in need by the end of 2009. Donating nutritious produce, deli meat, beef, chicken, dairy and other groceries directly from its stores, Wal-Mart will become one of Feeding America's largest donors of food.

In addition, the Wal-Mart Foundation announced a $2.5 million cash donation to Feeding America. These funds will be used to help Feeding America food banks improve warehouse capacity and purchase 20 new refrigerated trucks to safely transport food from Walmart stores to food pantries, soup kitchens and other Feeding America agencies.

Even the New York Times has taken notice:

Wal-Mart's annual donation will account for more than 4 percent of the roughly 2.2 billion pounds Feeding America, formerly known as America’s Second Harvest, distributed last year. Vicki Escarra, president and chief executive of the organization, said it planned to increase that amount to 3 billion pounds a year over the next four years.

Feeding America works with grocery chains like Kroger, Supervalue and Wal-Mart, which provide 280 million pounds of food a year, Ms. Escarra said. "This is food that would otherwise be wasted but is very, very valuable to the people who use our food banks," she said.

Read more about Wal-Mart food donations in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in Little Rock, Arkansas, and here in Illinois.

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