A slowing economy only increases the plight of the chronically needy, a fact that 29-year-old Maryland Food Bank this week hopes to address through activities honoring September as national “Hunger Action Month.”
Part of a nationwide network of 200 food banks called Feeding America, the hunger-fighting nonprofit provides 1,000 Maryland social action agencies with 14.3 million pounds of food per year — partly through a mobile provisioning service that will expand to 20 agencies in Anne Arundel County on Friday.
“We realized that a lot of the agencies that we serve are of very limited resources,” Maryland Food Bank Chief Executive Officer Deborah Flateman said of its Pantry on the Go expansion. “So we work with the agency to find the funding to bring about 6,000 extra pounds [of food] to the clients they serve at a special time and place.”
Expansion to Cecil County is next, Flateman said.
The new service, which will launch from New Life Fellowship Baptist Church in Hanover at 11 a.m., will that day also feature representatives of the Glen Burnie managed care organization Priority Partners offering free health care information to all comers.
A Maryland Food Bank partner, Priority Partners is funding Pantry on the Go in Anne Arundel County, where the 2000 U.S. Census reported about 33,000 living at or below federal poverty levels.
“They’re outstanding,” said Karen Hayward-West, CEO of the Franciscan Center, a Baltimore City outreach group. “The [food bank] is really helping us close the gap in feeding Maryland’s hungry.”
Friday’s event will follow today’s “Take a Bite out of Hunger With Dunkin’ Donuts” fundraiser at Camden Station’s MARC train stop from 6 to 9 a.m. There, in exchange for a donation to the food bank, the donut chain will offer passers-by free samples of its new toasted sandwiches.
Then from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at Baltimore’s Wolfe Street Academy, the 64-employee, $28 million-a-year nonprofit will participate in a Coalition for a Healthy Maryland outreach fair. Here, visitors may sign up for food stamps — which Flateman says are 35 percent underutilized by eligible Maryland residents — and medical assistance, as well as obtain nutritional information.
“In terms of the work that they do, [Maryland Food Bank] is vital in the state,” said Bill McLennan, executive director of Paul’s Place, a hot lunch program. “They’re a resource to over 900 groups, 400 in Baltimore City.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Maryland Food Bank
2200 Halethorpe Farms Road
Baltimore, MD 21227
410-737-8282; mdfoodbank.org
