Many of us had an opportunity to meet Elanco CEO Jeff Simmons at an exercise  Tyson Foods and Elanco conducted recently to make senior executives aware of the challenges of shopping on a SNAP budget.   Jeff is a man who is truly on a mission. Since Elanco has become actively engaged in hunger relief, Jeff has become knowledgeable and sincerely passionate [...]

I’m going to poke an elephant in the room. Right now, the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program  (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp program)   is simply the best tool we have at our immediate disposal for addressing chronic food insecurity in the U.S. Problem is, in spite of its being one of the most-needed and best-managed government programs out there, a LOT [...]

Last week, I asked the question—which I’ve been asking for years—“Where’s the online discussion of hunger?”   Crickets. Dang folks.  These online channels—blogs, social media, forums, etc.—offer enormous potential for exciting and diverse discourse.  The hunger community is a passionate and opinionated bunch.  There’s enough diversity of thought among those who care about feeding people to have some really interesting discussion [...]

This is a post from four years ago, May, 2008.  I didn’t receive much of an answer then.  There were only a few of us involved in hunger relief using social channels back then.  Since then, use of social media has exploded. Most every hunger relief organization has an active social media presence now.  Take a look at the post [...]

At Tyson Foods, one of the things we’ve been trying to do with our hunger program in recent years is involve our stakeholders wherever possible.  That starts first and foremost with about 100,000 Team Members (employees) across 26 states.  We’ve also worked in activities with customers, vendors, communities, and advocacy groups. We were excited last week to announce a partnership [...]

Tom Nelson, President of Share Our Strength We were in Little Rock last week for the annual Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance  Serving Up Solutions dinner at the Governor’s mansion.   Arkansas First Lady, Ginger Beebe, along with members of the Arkansas Legislature Hunger Caucus served as waiters for the dinner.  It’s a great event, which brings together folks involved in hunger [...]

A year ago this morning, after hearing of the devastation suffered by our neighbors in Joplin, folks from several nearby Tyson Foods locations arrived on the scene to offer whatever assistance we could provide. The scene was stunning.  Chaotic. Confusing.  The tragedy has been well-documented. Tyson Team Members spent three weeks in Joplin, with up to six teams cooking and [...]

Many in the hunger community are already aware of the passing last week of our colleague and dear friend, Sue Brockway.  While her death was no surprise, it leaves those who knew Sue with a deep sense of loss.  To those who received the news directly from me last week, I’ll apologize for using the same words here, but I [...]

Growing up in a family of eight in Camden, New Jersey, Aaron McCargo got to see a lot of life, including lots of hungry kids.  Now a successful Food Network personality (better known as “Big Daddy”), he’s generous with his time and energy to help make the world a better place.  Not only has he traveled far and wide as [...]

Yesterday, we delivered the first two of ten truckloads of food resulting from our Share Your Knowledge campaign, in which readers were asked to share an important fact about hunger in a community and the work of the foodbank there. Our drivers delivered two truckloads of food–74,000 pounds to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. We’ll be posting photos of [...]

Last week we announced that we would be kicking off a very quick and brief effort, Share Your KNOWledge,  to create some awareness about hunger in eight different communities.  We offered a 10 pound donation (up to a 35,000 pound truckload) for each share of a fact about hunger in these communities on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest). We [...]

We’ve upped the ante!  Now we’re going to donate 100 pounds of food for every share of this fact on your favorite social network! Nearly half of those served by Gleaners Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan in Detroit are children and seniors. Share this message on any of your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Google+), and Tyson Foods will [...]

We’ve upped the ante!  Now we’re going to donate 100 pounds of food for every share of this fact on your favorite social network! Nearly half of those served by Gleaners Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan in Detroit are children and seniors.   Share this message on any of your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Google+), and Tyson Foods will [...]

For the next two weeks, we’re going to be working to help raise awareness about hunger in eight specific U.S. communities.   In the process, we’ll be donating some food to Feeding America food banks in those communities. Every day, you’ll see a new post here, and a new Facebook post  with a graphic like the one above with a compelling [...]

Joel Berg and  his associates at the New York City Coalition Against Hunger have put together this excellent fact sheet on hunger and federal assistance programs.   Published here by permission.    Original location here. By the New York City Coalition Against Hunger Keep these facts on hand for discussions with friends, family members, neighbors, congregants, and co-workers: In 2010, 49 million Americans, [...]