Volunteering in America’s Food Banks
In the mid-1960s, after a paralyzing injury and during rehabilitation in Phoenix, Arizona, John van Hengel began volunteering at a local soup kitchen. He solicited food donations, which resulted in far more food than the kitchen could use. Around this time, one of John’s clients told him that she regularly fed her children with discarded items from a grocery store garbage dumpster. She told him that the food quality was fine, but that there should be a place where unwanted food could be deposited and later withdrawn by people who needed it, like a bank.
by Chef Al McDonald
In the mid-1960s, after a paralyzing injury and during rehabilitation in Phoenix, Arizona, John van Hengel began volunteering at a local soup kitchen. He solicited food donations, which resulted in far more food than the kitchen could use. Around this time, one of John’s clients told him that she regularly fed her children with discarded items from a grocery store garbage dumpster. She told him that the food quality was fine, but that there should be a place where unwanted food could be deposited and later withdrawn by people who needed it, like a bank.
Van Hengel began to actively solicit unwanted food from grocery stores, local gardens, and nearby citrus groves. His effort led to the creation of St. Mary's Food Bank Alliances, and with it St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix, the nation's first food bank.
In 1975, St. Mary's was awarded a federal grant to assist in developing food banks across the nation. This effort was formally incorporated into a separate non-profit organization in 1976.
In 2001, America's Second Harvest merged with St. Mary’s Food Bank, which was the nation's largest food-rescue organization at that time.
In 2005, Feeding America began using an internal market with a synthetic currency called "shares" to more rationally allocate food. Currency is allocated based on the need, and then individual banks bid on which foods they want the most, based on local knowledge and ability to transport and store the food offered. Negative prices are possible, so banks could earn shares by picking up undesirable food. The previous centrally planned system had penalized banks for refusing any food offered, even if it was the wrong type to meet their needs, and this resulted in misallocations (“sending potatoes to Idaho”), food rotted away in places that did not need it, and the wrong types of food being delivered (e.g., not matching hot dogs with hot dog buns.)
In May 2007, the food bank market system was featured on ''American Idol' and in September 2008, the organization name was changed to Feeding America.
Prism Hospitality Group is committed to donating 5% of its net profits to local food banks, such as the North Texas Food Bank. If DFW is your neighborhood, please visit the NTFB, or look for a local food bank in your area by checking with Feeding America, where you can find food banks in most states. Whether it’s food or monetary donations, or sharing your time to volunteer, it all adds up. No one in the United States should go hungry.