Whole Foods, Food Network Help Hungry Philly Kids

Whole Foods Market has joined forces with Food Network, Share Our Strength and Mayor Michael A. Nutter’s office to raise awareness of childhood hunger in Philadelphia through a holiday food collection drive that will help deliver 45,000 meals in the area by Christmas. Drives held earlier this month in Washington and Baltimore collected enough nonperishable food items to prepare 90,000 meals.

In the image at left, Nutter, Philadelphia First Lady Lisa Nutter and Bill Clark, executive director of Delaware Valley food assistance organization Philabundance, prepare to take bags of food donated by Food Network to a truck that will delivernonperishable items provided by Whole Foods shoppers to Philabundance.

The need is more critical than ever: Dry food donations are down about 7 percent in the Philadelphia region this year versus 2010, while agencies served by Philabundance are experiencing a 26 percent increase in need.