Special Reception Held to Support Food Banks
SEATTLE-(Business Wire)-September 18, 2009 - On September 15, 2009, Annie’s Fun/Hirai Farms and Sodexo held a special reception at Palisade in Seattle in support of food banks in Washington State.
The primary purpose of the reception was to help focus attention on the warehousing and food storage needs of food banks in the state, especially in rural areas.
Over 40 people attended the event including several legislators (Sen. Chris Marr, Sen. Brian Hatfield, Sen. Steve Hobbs, Rep. Judy Warnick, Rep. Phyllis Kenney, Rep. Bob Hasegawa, Rep. Marcie Maxwell) and Laura Lockard, the Director of Outreach for Governor Christine Gregoire. Additionally, several representatives of agriculture, minority farmer organizations, food processing, business and international trade groups, port districts and food banks from around the state were also in attendance.
During the reception, a special award was presented by Kerwin Higashi of Sodexo and Blaine Hirai of Annie’s Fun/Hirai Farms to National Frozen Foods Corporation (www.nationalfrozenfoods.com) for its ongoing leadership and efforts to help feed those in need in the Pacific Northwest. During their remarks, Kerwin Higashi and Blaine Hirai highlighted a recent event in April in which National Frozen Foods Corporation (NFFC), Annie’s Fun/Hirai Farms and Sodexo worked together to donate and package several thousand pounds of frozen corn which was distributed to food banks across the state (www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS99160+10-Apr-2009+PRN20090410). More importantly, it was noted that NFFC has donated over 8 million lbs of vegetables to Pacific Northwest food banks during the past two years.
Ed Rosenbach and Gary Ash of NFFC accepted the award and thanked Sodexo and Annie’s Fun/Hirai Farms and the audience for this special recognition (see attached photo of Ed Rosenbach and Gary Ash accepting award from Kerwin Higashi and Blaine Hirai).
Following the award presentation, Rep. Judy Warnick (13th Legislative District) discussed the importance of NFFC’s vegetable processing plants to the economy of the Columbia Basin and thanked NFFC for its efforts to help food banks and to work with partners such as Hirai Farms/Annie’s Fun and Sodexo.
Additionally, Laura Lockard of the Governor’s Office discussed Governor Gregoire’s “Feeding Washington” (http://www.governor.wa.gov/feedingwashington.asp) initiative and thanked NFFC, Sodexo, and Annie’s Fun/Hirai Farms for answering the Governor’s call for “Washingtonians to help (food banks) in any way they can”.
This is the second year that Annie’s Fun has presented an award. At last year’s reception in Seattle, an award was presented to McCain Foods for its commitment to helping disadvantaged communities.
To culminate the September 15th reception, the above mentioned legislators mentioned several areas of Washington State where the food bank system lacks adequate cold storage and warehousing infrastructure and cannot handle large amounts of food. As a result, the legislators announced a campaign to work with companies and organizations such as Sodexo, NFFC, Annie’s Fun, Hirai Farms, McCain Foods and with key food bank organizations to help secure various sources of funding (public and private) to enhance and increase cold storage and warehousing for food banks in various parts of the state.
For more information about or for photos from the September 15th Awards Reception, please contact Blaine Hirai of Annie’s Fun at giving@AnniesFun.org or at 509-693-7811 or at 360-878-7073.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6053209&lang=en
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