In this time of holiday merriment and giving, we have already asked you to support our Share the Harvest Gift Project, which enables the CAFB to work with local farms to provide healthy, fresh produce to members of our communities that often go without. Whether you have purchased a gift already or are still deciding how you can support this project this year, you can still help us increase our impact by reaching individuals that we may not be able to reach otherwise. Please consider using the following prompts to Share the Harvest on the various social media tools that you may use.

To Share the Harvest on Twitter – Tweet or Retweet this: Help @foodbankmetrodc provide fresh produce for all: Share the Harvest Gift Project http://goo.gl/9ZiWx #holidays #nourish

To Share the Harvest on Facebook – Paste this link in your status (http://www.capitalareafoodbank.org/share-the-harvest/) and when it has loaded, highlight the link and paste the following text in its place: Consider the Capital Area Food Bank and its Share the Harvest Gift Project as an option for gift giving this season. Your support helps the food bank provide local, sustainable produce to the communities that it serves.

Also consider using any other space where you share information to help Share the Harvest by pasting this – To Share the Harvest this holiday season, click here: http://goo.gl/9ZiWx.

Thank you for using your social networking tools to help us Share the Harvest this season. Your tweeting, updating and posting makes you a part of the effort to provide healthy, local produce to your neighbors in need. Happy Holidays!

With any purchase of Unto Others Jewelry, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the CAFB. 

Wharton partnered with the food bank earlier this year to help raise awareness about local hunger and has participated in numerous CAFB initiatives. 

So show off your unique sense of fashion and help the thousands of families, children and seniors in our community struggling to get one of life’s most basic needs – food.

The Capital Area Food Bank is launching a one million dollar campaign to underwrite the cost of acquiring 15 million pounds of fresh produce and distributing it to our partner agencies.  Our goal is to reaffirm our commitment to provide wholesome fruits and vegetables to those we serve.

We are in the midst of a hunger crisis here in the Washington area and across the nation.  The food bank’s transportation and food costs have increased by 30 percent in the last three months.  Hunger in our region has increased by more than 25 percent since 2006 and  people who are at risk of hunger exceeds 640,000 here in the metropolitan area.  That includes one out of every two children in Washington, DC, the  nation’s capital.  This economy is impacting not only the poor, but the middle class. 

People are losing homes, are working two and three jobs to make ends meet, and many are unable to find work.  In the past ten years, 50,000  manufacturing plants have closed throughout this country and 8 million jobs have disappeared and with these troubling realities, Congress is proposing $800 million in cuts to nutrition programs and cuts to many of the programs that have helped to create a vibrant economy and a strong, robust and healthy nation.

We find ourselves in the perfect storm.  If the food bank is not able to find additional funding, we deeply regret that we will be forced – for the first time in our 31-year history –  to pass along to our partner agencies a shared maintenance fee of 10 cents a pound for fresh produce.  While this fee is a fraction of the value of fresh produce,  it is an enormous new financial burden for our agencies, especially the smaller and more vulnerable ones.

 The Capital Area Food Bank is looking to you, our community, to ensure that this incredibly important fresh produce program will continue as it has in the past. Your trust and support will lift a burden and will ensure that we and our agencies can continue to help feed the 480,000 people that we serve annually though our network of  programs

 Your support is urgently needed.  Please make your donation on-line and designate that you want your contribution to support our fresh produce campaign.

The food bank is teaming up with KIND to Do the Kind Thing for children in need.  We are looking for people to commit one small act of kindness by Tuesday, June 7 (KIND Tuesday).  When you commit an act of kindness, KIND will donate funds to our Food for Kids’ Programs and help provide nutritious meals to children. 

What is the Big KIND Act?  By signing up, you agree to give someone who provides you with nourishment an orange by midnight on Tuesday!  Visit KIND for more information and to sign up.  Your participation will help provide 1800 nutritious meals to local children.

Help us make this Big KIND Act a reality by accepting the KINDING Mission today.

The CAFB is making a renewed commitment to provide fresh, nutritious produce to members of our community who are experiencing hunger – many for the first time.  

We are issuing an urgent appeal for your support to help us increase the amount of fresh produce we distribute to our more than 700 partner agencies.

The goal of our campaign – Everyone Deserves Fresh Produce — is to distribute 30 million pounds of food, including 15 million pounds of fresh produce, by June 30th.  We have six million pounds to go and we need your support to reach that goal.

Why is the need so critical?  Since 2006, hunger in the Washington metro area has increased by 25 percent and with the current rise in food prices, it’s only getting worse.  With 1 in 5 children in the metro area struggling with hunger and with so many families having to choose between paying the mortgage, health care, or paying for utilities, it is imperative that we do more to nourish our community.

An alarming rise in health-related illnesses, such as obesity and diabetes coupled with an increase in the numbers of people who now rely on food assistance, has forced  food providers such as the CAFB to revise its priorities.

 How will we do this and what types of produce will we be seeking?  We will continue to use our purchasing power to acquire produce from around the country, but we will also make a concerted effort to develop relationships with local farms, food projects and wholesalers in order to select a wider variety of fruits and vegetables.

We are asking, “Should emergency food providers focus solely on addressing the symptoms of hunger and ‘filling bellies,’ or improving health outcomes?”  Do we now have the added responsibility of ensuring that the most nutritionally at-risk families and individuals receive not just any donated surplus food, but healthy and nutritious food?

We believe that the nutritional quality of the food we distribute is as important as the quantity distributed to those in need.  We are reaffirming the food bank’s unwavering commitment over the past 15 years to providing fresh produce.

We all need to rally together to help develop sustainable funding for this serious initiative so we can address the most urgent hunger issues in our community.

On Friday, March 18^th Adam Lowy and Jason Taetsch from Move For Hunger visited the Capital Area Food Bank!  Founded by the Lowy Family, Move For Hunger – a nonprofit organization that links local moving companies with food banks – encourages clients to donate unopened food during the moving process and offers to deliver their donations directly to local food banks.  Learn more about this growing organization here.

These two ambitious young men were awarded a $10,000 grant from Ford Motor Company to take their show on the road as part of the Focus Global Test Drive: Start More Than A Car Campaign!  Adam and Jason are using their 2012 Ford Focus to take a 28-day tour across the United States to tell the story of hunger.  Not only are they visiting food banks and partner moving companies, but they are also blogging, tweeting and uploading videos along the way.

During their visit, Adam and Jason had a chance to chat with our Chief Operations Officer Mark McCaffrey and Director of Individual Giving Claudia Morris.  Click here to watch the brief and informative interviews.

Because of Adam and Jason’s work, our Northern Virginia branch is lucky enough to receive donations from four local moving companies: Eureka Van & Storage Co., Inc., Olympia Moving and Storage Company, Executive Moving Systems, Inc. and Bayshore Moving & Storage.  These generous companies collect food from clients and deliver donations to our Lorton, VA location on a regular basis.

Check out Adam and Jason’s blog as they make their way across the country!

Today, as we celebrate the first day of spring, the Capital Area Food Bank is making a renewed commitment to provide fresh, nutritious fruit and vegetables to members of our community who are experiencing hunger – many for the first time.  

Addressing the need for healthier food in our community, we are issuing an urgent appeal for your support to help us increase the amount of fresh produce we are able to distribute to our more than 700 partner agencies.  Please click here to support our fresh produce distribution.

Our goal announced last year on the food bank’s 30^th anniversary is the distribution of 30 million pounds of food including 15 million pounds of fresh produce by the end of this fiscal year, or June 30.  We have six million pounds to go and we need your support to reach that goal.

Why is the need so critical?  Since 2006, hunger in the Washington metro area has increased by 25 percent and with the current rise in food prices, it’s only getting worse. With 1 in 5 children in the metro area struggling with hunger and with so many families having to choose between paying the mortgage, health care, or paying for utilities, it is imperative that we do more to nourish our community.

An alarming rise in health related illnesses such as obesity and diabetes coupled with an increase in the numbers of people who now rely on food assistance has forced emergency food providers such as the Capital Area Food Bank to revise its priorities.

How will we do this and what types of produce will we be seeking?  We will continue to use our purchasing power to acquire produce from around the country, but we will also make a concerted effort to develop relationships with local farms, food projects, and wholesalers in order to select a wider variety of fruits and vegetables.

 We are asking, “Should emergency food providers focus solely on addressing the symptoms of hunger and ‘filling bellies,’ or improving health outcomes?”  Do we now have the added responsibility of ensuring that the most nutritionally at-risk families and individuals receive not just any donated surplus food and beverages, but healthy and nutritious food and beverages?

The answer is a resounding, “yes!”

We believe that the nutritional quality of the food and beverages we distribute is as important as the quantity of food and beverages distributed to those in need.  We are reaffirming the food bank’s unwavering 15-year commitment to providing fresh produce.

We will all need to rally together to help develop sustainable funding for this initiative, so we can continue to address the most urgent hunger issues in our community.

Brandenburg is asking the community to bring non-perishable protein to 1070 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW.  The Body You Want has bins upstairs and downstairs to collect your donation. 

Free classes will be offered throughout February on any Sunday. 

The holidays are over and a new year is upon us.  The year 2011 will bring new beginnings for many, however, for others the challenges of getting enough food to eat will remain. 

Giving during the holiday season is great but donations are needed throughout the year because hunger never takes a vacation.  As the food bank nears our 31st anniversary, we are asking for your support to help meet the increased demand for food, especially fresh produce. 

These are difficult times and we must work together to ensure that all in our community have access to quality, nutritious meals – three times a day.  We are calling upon all of our friends in the community because everyone can make a difference.  Your support is greatly needed to help us nourish the thousands of families, seniors, children and individuals struggling with hunger.

Remember everyone can make a difference.

1. Donate Food

-Host a food drive: download the food drive kit.

-Donate to an existing food drive, check out our current campaigns.

2. Donate Time

-You can volunteer at either of our warehouses, Tuesday through Saturday.

-Volunteer at one of our two large food drives this holiday season.  Sign up to volunteer at Food 2 Feed or Stuff- A-Truck here.

3. Donate Money

-Every $1 donated to the Capital Area Food Bank allows us to provide 3 meals to those struggling with hunger.

- 92 cents of every $1 donated goes directly towards the distribution of food and our programs creating sustainability.  To donate online, click here.

Still not sure how to help? Take a tour to learn more!