America's Second Harvest

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America's Second Harvest is a United States based nonprofit organization. It consists of a nation-wide network of more than 200 food banks and food-rescue organizations that serve virtually every county in the United States as well as Puerto Rico. It is the nation's largest charitable hunger-relief organization, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The current president and CEO is Vicki B. Escarra.

1 Mission
2 History
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Mission

To feed America's hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and engage the country in the fight to end hunger.

[edit] History

In the late 1960s, John van Hengel, a retired businessman in Phoenix, Arizona began volunteering at a local soup kitchen, and began soliciting food donations for the kitchen. He ended up with far more food than the kitchen could use in its operations. Around this time, he spoke with one of the clients, who told him that she regularly fed her family with discarded items from the grocery store's garbage bins. She told him that the food quality was fine, but that there should be a place where unwanted food could be stored and later accessed by people who needed it, similar to how banks store money.

Van Hengel began to actively solicit this unwanted food from grocery stores, local gardens, and nearby produce farms. His effort led to the creation of St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix, the nation's first food bank.

In 1976, St. Mary's was given a federal grant to assist in developing food banks across the nation. This effort was formally incorporated into a separate non-profit organization in 1979.

In March 2000, America's Second Harvest merged with Foodchain, at that time the nation's largest food-rescue organization.

In May 2007, it was featured on American Idol, named as a charity in the widely successful Idol Gives Back charity program.