Feeding Hunger: A “No Lunch” Lunch launches in Garner, North Carolina
In an effort to help combat childhood hunger, the GSF Foundation will launch a new food program this November that will begin in GSF’s Garner, North Carolina facility. The program, Feeding Hunger: A “No Lunch” Lunch will be a one-hour soup kitchen-style lunch that will help raise awareness and funds for the cause of childhood hunger in the local Garner area. The event will be held on November 17, exactly one week before Thanksgiving Day.
“Golden State Foods has been involved in food-focused causes to help others in the past, but this is the newest food program that the Foundation has launched as an organization,” explains Mark Wetterau, Chairman and CEO of Golden State Foods and Chairman of the GSF Foundation. “We just felt it was time to rally around one specific event that could really make a difference.”
Since its inception in 2002, the Foundation has donated nearly two million pounds of food to local soup kitchens and food banks around the U.S. to help the hungry. And as a Board Member for Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, Wetterau chaired the capital campaign to raise more than $8 million in the mid-2000s to remodel the food bank’s donated facility in Irvine and later served as the organization’s Chairman of the Board. Wetterau explains that the GSF Foundation is modeling its Feeding Hunger program after SHFB of OC’s “No Lunch” Lunch event that it’s had in place for years.
“They’ve done an outstanding job with this event in Orange County [California] since 1984, and with their blessing, we’re taking the concept to the next level by expanding our program throughout the country, starting with Garner.”
Golden State Foods will be the Presenting Sponsor of this event, along with support from Gregg Tarlton, General Manager of the Garner distribution center, and the entire Garner team will be organizing and hosting the event.
“In Wake County, North Carolina where the “No Lunch” Lunch event will be held, 35 percent of children under 18 are hungry,” said Anna Lisa Lukes, Executive Director of the GSF Foundation. “Through the support of our steering committee, GSF Garner, and all of our supporting sponsors, we will be able to make a significant impact on that number.”
All proceeds from Feeding Hunger: A “No Lunch” Lunch will benefit area organizations including the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina and Community of Hope.
For more information about this inaugural event, please visit www.feedinghunger2016.eventbrite.com.