Milton, Fla. – Bay Area Food Bank won one of 50 grants awarded to Feeding America food banks as part of Walmart’s “Fight Hunger Spark Change” initiative.
The contest started on September 15 and ended on October 5. The 50 food banks with the most votes at the end of the contest were awarded $60,000 each in support of their hunger relief initiatives. Bay Area Food Bank finished at number 48 out of 50 securing their $60,000 award by just 11 votes.
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Bay Area Food Bank will use the awarded funds to continue to help low-income families stretch dollars and eat better through distribution of purchased and donated food. The food bank will expand Cooking Matters Workshop, which help clients who are food insecure gain exposure to fresh foods, nutritional recipes, tips on reading food labels, and tips for shopping on a tight budget. Each Cooking Matters Workshop series consists of 6 hands-on cooking demonstrations.
After each class, participants receive a bag of food so they can cook the recipes used in the class session at home. Workshops include economic shopping seminars and an in-store shopping session to improve understanding of pricing and nutrition labeling. The food bank will also provide 335,000 pounds of food to its most impoverished and rural counties through direct distribution and mobile pantries.
Bay Area Food Bank serves a 24-county area spanning south Alabama, south Mississippi, and the panhandle of Florida. In 2013, the food bank distributed over 17 million pounds of food to more than 400 church pantries, soup kitchens and other nonprofit organizations throughout its service area.
The food bank also operates multiple nutrition programs, including Summer Food Service, Afterschool Snack, Backpack, Disaster Relief, Community Garden, Mobile Pantry, Cooking Matters, and SNAP Outreach. Bay Area Food Bank is a United Way agency and a member of Feeding America.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Okaloosa among 25 counties to benefit from $60K food grant