The bleakest job market since the Great Depression has driven a new breed of client en masse to the Food Banks: managerial-level employees dealing with long-term unemployment; contractors and commission-based workers; and families who were getting by before one parent lost a job. The middle class, which only occasionally used the services of our 275 community agencies before the economy turned, has been converted with staggering speed into the low-income.

The 2009 holiday season, now upon us, will be the highest-demand period in our 24-year history. If you can’t feed 100 people, help us feed one.

Brian Wong is a 14-year-old high school sophomore with a 4.5 GPA who entertains seniors in his hometown of Alameda with a startling array of songs from the past eight decades. If you can hum it, he can play it. Brian has parlayed donations for his unique talent into more than $3,000 for the Alameda County Community Food Bank. Read more

To see who else is coloring outside the lines in the campaign against hunger, see our Stand In the Place Where You Live page:

... but you can still order the year's best compilation of artists directly from KFOG.com. Check out world-class artists like Mat Kearney, David Gray, The Pretenders, The Fray, Susan Tedeschi, Little Feat and many more. Thanks to FOGheads everywhere, the live from the Archives series has now surpassed the $4 million mark in contributions to Bay Area Food Banks!

"... Governor Schwarzenegger and his nominee to fill the vacant lieutenant governor's office, state Sen. Abel Maldonado, toured the bustling food warehouse on Edgewater Drive, chatting with Alameda County Community Food Bank Executive Director Suzan Bateson and California Association of Food Banks Executive Director Sue Sigler. ..."
-- Oakland Tribune Read the story

Read about Hunger Heroes whose outstanding deeds have helped the Food Bank serve 40,000 people each week.