"With the economy still struggling, many Ohio families find themselves in a similar position while trying to put together holiday meals.
The Mid-Ohio Foodbank plans to help about 15,000 of them.
By Friday, the food bank is to have shipped 2 million pounds of food to about 500 pantries and other distributors across its 20-county service area. The holiday program produces boxes that each hold enough food to feed a four-person family for three or four days, said spokesman Colin Baumgartner. "It obviously keeps our trucks very busy."
The program is in its second year and accounts for a lot of the bank's annual distribution, which should reach 40 million pounds this year, Baumgartner said.
That's a 4 million-pound jump over last year and a sign of the rising demand that food banks throughout the state are working to manage, he said, adding that distribution by Mid-Ohio is up 44 percent over four years ago. The Cleveland Foodbank has provided 50percent more food during the past two years. As of Nov.30, Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank had distributed 38 percent more food than in the first 11 months of last year."
Read the full article from The Columbus Dispatch.
