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| Thu, Aug. 28, 2008 |  |
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Fort Smith company takes food drive to DC Thursday, Mar 6, 2008 By Sara Spivey Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - A Fort Smith company's drive to raise awareness about hungry families ended in a Capitol Hill meeting room on Wednesday. Representatives of U-Pack Moving, a division of ABF Freight System, gathered stories, held food drives and raised money for the hungry during a four month campaign that took it to nine cities. The stories of families that struggled to put food on the table were collected in a backpack that Jim Ingram, vice president of market development, presented to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., a founder of the Senate Hunger Caucus four years ago. More than 12 million children in the United States don't know where their next meal is coming from, according to America's Second Harvest, a national food bank that partnered with ABF. Ingram said a Kiwinis Club program that provides poverty stricken, school-aged children with a backpack filled with nutritious food to take home on the weekends inspired the company to start its own program. "We have some teachers that work for us in the summer time, and hearing the real stories of how beneficial backpack programs are in Fort Smith, we thought 'there's got to be some things we can do'," Ingram said. ABF made available some of its 28-foot storage cubes to food banks and started a donation Web site to host a virtual food drive, U-Pack a BackPack. The organizations have raised $12,000, which ABF has matched so far. The goal is to raise about $50,000, enough to buy 1 million pounds of food by June 1. America's Second Harvest will use the money to restock food bank shelves and provide for backpack programs to feed children and their families. Vicki Escarra, president and chief executive officer of America's Second Harvest, said all local donations will help local America's Second Harvest food banks and food-rescue organizations feed local children and their families throughout the school year. |
