CCS and Saint Andrew's Food Pantry receive a share of Walmart's $1 million grant to fight hunger

Intermountain Catholic

+ Enlarge

Karisa Sprague (left) Walmart regional general manager, along with Kevin Forsgren (second from right), Salt Lake City Walmart marketing manager, present Saint Andrew Food Pantry co-managers MaryAnn Garcia and Mary Jane Smith with a check for $25,000 to continue to fight hunger. Second from left is Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Coroon.

SALT LAKE CITY — Catholic Community Services (CCS) and Saint Andrew Parish Pantry in Riverton were among the eight Salt Lake City community organizations to receive a share of the $1 million in grants from Walmart’s "Help Fight Hunger" campaign. CCS’s Saint Vincent de Paul dining hall in Salt Lake City received $60,000 and the CCS Joyce Hansen Hall Northern Utah Food Bank in Ogden received $75,000. The St. Andrew Food Pantry received $25,000. The checks were presented at the State Capitol Feb. 24.

Governor Gary Herbert, mayors and community organization representatives joined representatives of the Walmart Foundation for the culmination of the Walmart Fighting Hunger campaign. "We launched this campaign almost four months ago, and today we kicked off the celebration," said Karisa Sprague, Walmart regional general manager. "For the first time, we left it up to millions of Americans to decide which communities would receive $1.5 million in grants to fight hunger at the local level."

More than 10 million votes were cast during the campaign, which ran from Nov. 15 through Dec. 31. The campaign called on Facebook users to vote for one of the 100 hungriest communities in the United States as ranked by the Food Research and Action Center. Voters chose six winning communities within the United States. Salt Lake City was selected as number one. Two Ogden community organizations received $100,000 as runners-up in the campaign.

"The fight against hunger in our state is something that has been an ongoing effort for many years," said Herbert. "This campaign was a novel approach and Utah had about 5.6 million participants on Facebook identifying Salt Lake City and Ogden as areas needing help to fight hunger and we have about 2.8 million people in Utah."

Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon said non-profits such as CCS, St. Andrew Food Pantry and Utahns Against Hunger help those in need every day. "In Utah one in seven people are at risk of not getting fed every day, and in the Salt Lake metropolitan area, 18.2 percent cannot afford a regular meal," he said.

The money from the Walmart Foundation will allow CCS to buy two refrigerated trucks to provide fresh produce, dairy and meat products to serve people who are in need, said Brad Drake, CCS executive director. "In Northern Utah we serve approximately 60,000 food boxes a year, and at the St. Vincent de Paul dining hall we provide between 225,000 and 250,000 meals per year," he said.

Monsignor J. Terrence Fitzgerald, vicar general, thanked the Walmart Foundation for their generous grants on behalf of CCS. "The CCS St. Vincent dining hall serves about 1,000 hot meals six days a week to those who are hungry and in need," he said.

St. Andrew Food Pantry serves about 1,200 people per month, which is about 3,500 meals per month to people in West Jordan, Draper, Bluffdale, Herriman, Riverton, Copperton and Eagle Mountain, said MaryAnn Garcia, St. Andrew Food Pantry co-manager. "The money we received from Walmart will provide us with a manager’s expertise in setting up our facility to make it more efficient. We also need to expand to a larger facility, which would allow us to serve more people."

"It’s hard to comprehend that 17 million families in America, about 15 percent of our population had trouble putting food on their tables last year," said Sprague. "That is one in every six Americans. If everyone gets involved to fight hunger, we can overcome it."