The amount of perishable food recovered from area grocery stores and restaurants has tripled in the past three years, but the need is still great.
That’s according to Tina Osso, executive director for Shared Harvest Foodbank, a Butler County organization whose retail pickup program last year recovered nearly 2.1 million pounds of perishable food from grocery stores in Butler, Warren, Darke, Miami and Preble counties to help feed the needy.
That’s a 66 percent increase from 2010 and more than three times what the foodbank collected in 2009 to help feed the hungry at more than 100 soup kitchens, food pantries and shelters in all five counties.
Gary Chapman, executive director of Open Door Food Pantry in Hamilton, said Shared Harvest provides 75 percent of the pantry’s food, helping feed between 1,200 and 4,000 hungry people each month.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Middletown Journal
