Food Lion, Western Union Donate $200K to Kids’ Programs

The Food Lion Charitable Foundation and the Western Union Foundation have once more teamed up to aid programs that help children by donating a total of $200,000 to Chicago-based hunger relief organization Feeding America and nine of its member food banks. At an Oct. 12 event at Food Lion’s corporate offices in Salisbury, N.C., Food Lion Charitable Foundation President Kyle Price and Western Union SVP Carter Hunt presented checks to representatives from the various food banks.

Food Lion’s contribution addresses child hunger, while Englewood, Colo.-based Western Union is supporting educational efforts. The combined grant will aid students in the communities that Food Lion and Western Union serve.

“Food Lion has a long-standing partnership with Feeding America in an effort to fight hunger,” noted Price. “The Food Lion Charitable Foundation provides hundreds of grants each year to support important hunger relief programs at agencies across our operating markets.”

The Feeding America food bank grant recipients are Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.), Food Bank of Southeastern Virginia (Norfolk, Va.), Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina (Winston-Salem, N.C.), Foodbank of the Virginia Peninsula (Hampton, Va.), Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina (Charlotte, N.C.), FeedMore Inc. (dba Central Virginia Food Bank), (Richmond, Va.), Capital Area Food Bank (Washington, D.C.), Lowcountry Food Bank (North Charleston, S.C.) and Harvest Hope Food Bank (Greenville, S.C.).

Specifically, the grant donations will support Feeding America’s “Kids Café” programs at each of the food banks. “With 170,000 children living in poverty in the Metrolina region, the support of Food Lion and Western Union is so important in ensuring we meet our No. 1 goal of ending child hunger in our 19-county service region of North and South Carolina,” said Kay Carter, executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, which has 42 Kids Cafe sites in 12 counties across the two states.

Established in 2001, the Food Lion Charitable Foundation provides financial support for programs and organizations that feed the hungry in the communities it serves. Food Lion, a company of Delhaize America, the U.S. division of Brussels-based Delhaize Group, operates more than 1,100 supermarkets and employs about 58,000 associates in 10 Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic states.