The Bend Food Project, a nonprofit focused on alleviating food insecurity in Central Oregon, has hit a major milestone: the collection of enough food to create over one million meals. By contrast, the food collected during their kickoff event in October of 2015 created 2,100 meals.
“It’s an astonishing number,” said co-founder Larry Marceaux of the Bend Food Project. “We never dreamed we could hit this goal of one million meals so soon. Central Oregonians have been quick to volunteer and donors have been very generous.”
One million meals equate to over 1,250,000 pounds of food.
Donors are given a now-infamous green bag. For two months, the donor keeps the bag in their pantry, and adds a can or two of non-perishable food after a trip to the grocery store. Every other month, a neighborhood coordinator picks up the bag from the donor’s front porch, leaving behind a new, empty green bag. The green bags that have been gathered are delivered to a central location. After being sorted by even more volunteers, the food is sent from there to the Giving Plate distribution facility.
In 2015, the Bend Food Project was launched with the help of ten friends. Today there are 235 neighborhood coordinators who collect food from 3,600 donors every other month. The growth in volunteers/donors is critical as the number of people in the last year who are food insecure is up 30 percent.
“Our goal this year is to grow our volunteer/donor base to keep up with the increasing need in our community,” states co-founder Sue Marceaux. “Given the high cost of living in Central Oregon, this need will only get larger.”
Bend Food Project’s next collection event will be held in October. “We’re now aiming for that two million pound mark,” said Sue Marceaux. “We’ve got a pretty impressive giving community here.”
