2011 Second Harvest Donation
Over the past five years, B&W Y‑12 and its employees have donated more than $75,000 and over 20,000 pounds of food to Second Harvest. View larger image.
The numbers are staggering: one out of every five East Tennesseans lives in poverty, and one in four local children is at risk of going hungry tonight. Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee works tirelessly to ensure people in our community are not denied their basic human need for food.
“Eighty percent of the people we serve are children or families — the working poor,” said Donna Hottinger, Second Harvest’s corporate relations administrator. The agency serves 18 counties and more than 165,000 people in East Tennessee.
B&W Y‑12 is a corporate sponsor of Second Harvest, and Y‑12 employees have given generously to the agency over the years. Through the kindness of employees, Y‑12 recently donated $7500 and 10,000 pounds of food to Second Harvest. That money, from the United Way Days of Caring campaign, brings the total of Y‑12 employee contributions to $15,670 this year alone. Following Second Harvest’s simple $1 = 3 meals formula, Y‑12 employees have provided more than 47,000 meals to area residents this year.
The recently donated food will go in Second Harvest’s warehouse food bank, where agencies are welcome to shop for any food needs. Aside from the food bank, Second Harvest puts food on trucks for mobile pantries, which set up tractor trailer loads of food at agency locations, or for the rural routes program, which delivers pallets of food to several rural agencies on a recurring basis.
Second Harvest also runs the Food for Kids program in collaboration with area schools. The program provides a backpack full of food after school or each weekend to students who might otherwise go hungry. Y‑12 sponsors two schools — Willow Brook Elementary in Oak Ridge and Andersonville Elementary — for the backpack program.
The recent donation is just one more in a long list of Y‑12 contributions to Second Harvest. In March, Y‑12 employees gave more than $12,000 to help Second Harvest replace food destroyed by flooding. Y‑12 also helps support various other Second Harvest programs throughout the year — including Bowlicious and Without Reservations. Over the past five years, B&W Y‑12 and its employees have donated more than $75,000 and over 20,000 pounds of food to Second Harvest.
Second Harvest Executive Director Elaine Streno had a simple message for Y‑12 employees. “Thank you so much for your support,” she told the group assembled at the warehouse. “When you go back to your offices, tell everyone we love you.”
