Wal-Mart’s Helping Hand
Wal-Mart’s Helping Hand
Article by James Southland
As food stamp recipients are increasing and food banks are hardly meeting demand, Wal-Mart is giving a helping hand. It plans to increase its donation total to the amount of 2 billion dollars over the next 5 years. Wal-Mart, the largest grocer in the country, plans to increase its donation to those who are hurting. They will be increasing their trucking capacity to keep food refrigerated longer as it travels from the store to the charities and investing in programs to feed children during the summer months when they are not in school.They plant on donating over 1 billion pounds of food, about half will be items that food banks say are the greatest need; dairy, meat, fresh fruit, and vegetables. Wal-Mart store employees are getting involved by donating their time to help the food banks run more efficiently.Wal-Mart also plans to use their experts to help food banks install heavier storage units so they can store more food and revamp the floor plans so they will be easier to navigate by those seeking assistance, allowing more people to be helped in shorter amount of time.This move shows a marked increase in the amount of giving Wal-Mart has done. In 2008 they spend around $ 12 million in cash and 42 million pounds of food. 2009 saw them increase these totals to $ 21 million in cash and over 116 million pounds of food. There are many signs that the economy is on the rebound; however job creation is still very weak as evidenced by the 39 million people receiving food stamps. Food assistance typically goes overseas, so this announcement from Wal-Mart is making other foundations and companies change their priorities to those closer to home.While their contributions are a drop in the bucket compared to the overall need, Wal-Mart is just the helping hand that is needed.
About the Author
Along with enjoying writing, James enjoys working in his gardens. Garden Harvest Supply is one of his favorite gardening web sites where you can buy strawberry plants and potted heirloom tomato plants ready to plant in your garden.
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Along with enjoying writing, James enjoys working in his gardens. Garden Harvest Supply is one of his favorite gardening web sites where you can buy strawberry plants and potted heirloom tomato plants ready to plant in your garden.
Use and distribution of this article is subject to our Publisher Guidelines
whereby the original author’s information and copyright must be included.
