SPRINGFIELD – In a company-wide effort to help the hungry within their local communities, Big Y’s 5th annual Sack Hunger/Care To Share Program brought 19,238 bags of food to local charities. Sack Hunger bags are large brown reusable grocery bags filled with staple non-perishable food items for local food banks. Customers purchase a Sack Hunger bag of groceries for $10 and Big Y distributes the food to that region’s local food bank. In turn, the food banks distribute the filled “sacks” to area soup kitchens, food pantries, senior food programs, daycare centers as well as many of their other member agencies. All of the donated sacks are distributed within the supermarket’s marketing area so every donation stays within the local community. Since its inception five years ago, over 74,000 bags have been donated to area needy via Big Y’s Sack Hunger Program. This year’s Sack Hunger ran from November 6 – December 31.
“Our Sack Hunger program makes it easy to provide nutritious, non-perishable staple food to those less fortunate within our community,” said Charles L. D’Amour, president and COO.”We are grateful to our customers who helped to support our friends and neighbors in need. In fact, all of their donated food has already been distributed to our area food banks.”
All five food banks within Big Y’s marketing area are participating in Sack Hunger. These food banks represent over 2,100 member agencies throughout the region. They are the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, The Greater Boston Food Bank, Worcester County Food Bank, Foodshare of Greater Hartford, and The Connecticut Food Bank.
The sacks include the following non-perishable Big Y items: instant rice, elbow macaroni, kidney beans, peanut butter, cut green beans, whole kernel corn, 2 cans of chunk light tuna, sweet peas, quick oats, and corn flakes. Sacks were available at all 61 Big Y Supermarkets and Fresh Acres.
