Capital Blue Cross recently donated to Hope Rescue Mission and Helping Harvest to help fight food insecurity in Berks and Schuylkill counties.
The donation to Helping Harvest, a fresh food bank serving Berks and Schuylkill, was for $10,000, and the donation to Hope Recue Mission in Reading was for $5,000, officials from those organizations said.
Those contributions will help fund Hope Rescue Mission’s Healthy Meals/Healthy Lives and Helping Harvest’s Weekender programs, officials said.
“Nearly 1.8 million Pennsylvanians are food insecure, including nearly 1 in 10 people in Berks County and more than 1 in 10 and Schuylkill County,” Susan Hubley, Capital Blue Cross vice president of corporate social responsibility, said in a release.
“Capital is committed to helping ensure that fewer people in our region go hungry, and supporting critical programs such as these is an important step in that direction,” she said.
Healthy Meals/Healthy Lives provides three meals daily to hundreds in need, and strives to offer nutritious food to encourage overall healthy lives to the most at-risk community members facing food insecurity.
Helping Harvest’s Weekender Program addresses childhood hunger in the region by providing children from food-insecure homes with a bag filled with essential foods to sustain them through the weekend when they don’t receive school breakfasts and lunches. The program serves 4,000 schoolchildren weekly at more than 80 schools in the region.
“We at Helping Harvest believe that feeding children during their peak brain and body development years is one of, if not the, most important ways we can support our neighbors,” said Jay Worrall, the organization’s president.
“Our Weekender Program is designed to ensure that children who normally get two meals a day at school or preschool have enough to eat over the weekend, and can return to school on Monday ready to learn and grow,” he said. “This program simply would not be possible without the generosity of individuals and organizations like Capital Blue Cross, who together will provide over 125,000 weekender bags this year.”
“We are so grateful for our faithful community partner Capital Blue Cross,” said Robert Turchi, Hope Rescue Mission CEO.
The organization is providing shelter, clothing, toiletries, three meals per day and supportive services to over 265 men, women and children, who are among the most vulnerable members of the community, he said, and the donation will help allow that support to continue.
Source: Berkshire mont