Today in America, with billion dollar mergers everywhere, and more disposable income and millionaires than ever before, we still have over 21 million people who are food insecure, food insecure with moderate hunger, and food insecure with severe hunger. Hunger expert Larry Brown, head of Tufts University's Center on Hunger and Poverty, says four million children in America experience severe hunger. The Northern Virginia branch of the Capital Area Food Bank.
Food banks are the center of food collection and distribution for poor people in a community.
This food usually comes from grocery stores or manufacturers, and is food that would have been otherwise thrown away. In a given area, such as the Washington metropolitan area, which encompasses not only Washington but also very large areas of suburban Maryland and Virginia, this amounts to tons of food during the year. Most of the food disposed of is because it is perishable, time dated and close to the expiration date, or discontinued. Yet this is nutritious food if it reaches poor people in a timely fashion. The best answer today comes from an impressive survey conducted in 1997 by Second Harvest, one of the nation's two associations of food banks and food rescue programs.