Stop & Shop Supermarket Company made a Thanksgiving food delivery Tuesday that is really worth giving thanks; their surprise, last-minute food deliveries to the Greater Boston Food Bank, Rhode Island Community Food Bank, and The Open Door Food Pantry provided complete turkey dinners for 850 families.
Each turkey dinner serves six to eight people and includes a fully cooked 10-12 pound turkey complete with mashed potatoes, stuffing, butternut squash, gravy and cranberry relish. The last-minute meal donations are in addition to Stop & Shop’s annual Turkey Express program which delivered 20,000 turkeys to local hunger relief organizations earlier this month.
"Today more than ever families are forced to make tough decisions between paying for food or paying their gas bill," said Faith Weiner, senior director of public affairs for Stop & Shop. "This week we want to make it an easy choice by providing a free, ready to eat Thanksgiving dinner."
While the holidays are a time when Americans are particularly sensitive to hunger, this is an epidemic that is getting increasingly worse year-round. The U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s Economic Research Service reported that 14.6 percent of households were "food insecure" – lacking consistent access to nutritious food – at least some time during 2008, up from 11.1 percent in 2007. This is the highest recorded prevalence rate of food insecurity since 1995 when the first national food security survey was conducted.
In the Massachusetts region served by Stop & Shop’s recent donations, the USDA reported that more than 8 percent of households – approximately 206,000 – experience food insecurity. This number shows growth of nearly a percentage point over the past decade.
Stop & Shop will work to fight hunger even after the holidays; the supermarket company recently awarded a $1.5 million, three-year grant to 17 local Feeding America food banks to support hunger relief efforts.