Thank you, Walmart and Feeding America, for Expansion Grants!
We are honored to have been chosen to receive two grants that will provide tremendous help as we expand donations from retail stores. In the coming months, we will be adding more stores and additional routes to our pick up schedule. A $50,000 Infrastructure Grant awarded by Feeding America will be applied toward the cost of one of the new refrigerated trucks we will need.
We were also one of 60 food banks in the Feeding America network – and the only in New York State — to be chosen to participate in the Walmart Foundation’s Performance Pilot Grant. In 2014, donations from our retail partners totaled over 6.45 million pounds, for which the Food Bank and our Retail Partner Agencies are very grateful, but there is still much more that is available for donation from current donors and new stores that will begin donating.
Walmart is dedicated to supporting the growth of retail store programs nationwide through this new form of grant award designed to help food banks create strategic plans to achieve recovery of all possible pounds identified based on Feeding America network averages comparing yield for stores of similar size. We received an initial grant payment of $20,000, and we will work with stores and RPAs to recover more food to earn an additional $20,000.