Since moving into our permanent facility near the Oakland Airport in 2005 and leading the national food bank movement for a ban on the distribution of carbonated beverages, the Food Bank has ramped up distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables by 845%.

The Food Bank’s exhaustively researched quadrennial study, Hunger: The Facts and Figures 2010 , revealed that 43% of the Food Bank’s clients are now children and teens (under 18). That’s 21,000 minors each week. The ,Children’s BackPack Program takes aim at weekend hunger among low-income schoolchildren, delivering family-sized bags of non-perishable food to 1,850 students in 22 elementary and middle schools in Berkeley, Hayward, Oakland and Livermore every other Thursday. The Food Bank also proactively promotes the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Summer Food Program , linking client families to school host sites.

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Through the USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program, the Food Bank distributed 5.5 million pounds of food in the past fiscal year – a 47% surge over the 2009 fiscal year.

In the past fiscal year, 351,921 low-income people received bags or boxes packed with nutritionally balanced food at 34 Food Bank member agency sites – a 4% increase over the previous year.