President George W. Bush will visit the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C., where he and Mrs. Laura Bush will join Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman in packaging food collected by the White House and other federal offices with food bank volunteers as part of a food collection drive organized by the USA Freedom Corps. President Bush will also speak to a group of volunteers and supporters of the Capital Area Food Bank regarding the opportunity to offer time and assistance to meet important community needs such as hunger during the holiday season.

About the Government Wide Food Drive

Several federal agencies and departments participate in clothing, food, and toy drives each holiday season. In response to reports from food banks around the country that cash and food donations this year are down, while demands for hunger relief are rising, the USA Freedom Corps has worked to coordinate across agencies and across the country to engage federal offices in collecting and delivering food to regional food banks.

• Participating agencies are using volunteers to coordinate the outreach, collection and donation efforts. Employees are being encouraged to collect food and other items from their own homes, from friends and neighbors, and from local markets.
   
• At least 29 federal agencies and departments are participating in food collection for the Capital Area Food Bank or other Washington, D.C. area organizations this winter. They include: Agriculture, Commerce, Corporation for National and Community Service, Defense, Education, Environmental Protection Agency, Energy, Executive Office of the President, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Federal Housing Finance Board, General Services Administration, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor, National Credit Union Agency, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Management and Budget, Office of Personnel Management, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Social Security Administration, State, Transportation, Treasury, Peace Corps, United States Agency for International Development, and United States Trade Representative.
   
• Several departments and agencies are working with their offices across the country to collect food for local feeding programs and food banks. The General Services Administration has engaged ten of its eleven regional offices in the collection effort. Those regional facilities provide office space to a variety of agencies and departments.

About the Capital Area Food Bank

The Capital Area Food Bank is the largest public, nonprofit food distribution and nutrition education resource in the Washington D.C. area, and is the recipient of most of the food being collected through the federal collection effort.

• The Capital Area Food Bank is a member of the America's Second Harvest National Food Bank Network. America's Second Harvest is the nation's largest domestic hunger relief organization, working through 200 food banks and food-rescue programs to offer emergency food assistance to more than 23 million hungry Americans each year, eight million of whom are children.
   
• The Capital Area Food Bank acquires food and distributes it to more than 750 feeding agencies in Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and Maryland. In 2001, the Capital Area Food Bank distributed nearly 20 million pounds of food, including more than 6 million pounds of fresh produce.
   
• The Capital Area Food Bank receives donations of food that would otherwise be discarded from grocery stores, bakeries, and manufacturers, as well as donations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, America's Second Harvest, and community food drives.
   
• Between 10,000 and 12,000 individuals volunteer each year at the Capital Area Food Bank's Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. warehouses and at their farm in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Those individuals dedicate between 35,000 and 40,000 hours each year to sorting and repackaging millions of pounds of food, leading education programs, staffing special events, and assisting with outreach.
   
• Agencies assisted by the Capital Area Food Bank fed hundreds of thousands of people last year.

About the Need for Time and Assistance

Although the economy is growing again and President Bush is dedicated to working with Congress to increase the momentum of our national economic recovery, many Americans remain in need of assistance. Government will always play a role in helping those who need food and shelter, but through the USA Freedom Corps, government also welcomes help from the individuals and organizations that form our armies of compassion.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reported that in 2001 some 11.5 million U.S. households did not have access to enough food to meet their basic needs. That need is reflected in the Washington, D.C. area and it appears to be growing - making the time and assistance of volunteers and donors even more important.

• The feeding agencies served by the Capital Area Food Bank are experiencing increased demand for food services this year - in some cases up to 100 percent greater demand than last year. At the same time, the Capital Area Food Bank reports that its fundraising is down, and food donations are also down slightly.
   
• The Capital Area Food Bank's Hunger Lifeline took 225 calls for emergency food assistance in November 2002, compared with 79 calls in November 2001 - an increase of more than 280 percent.

For more information on President Bush's USA Freedom Corps initiative to engage Americans of all ages in volunteer service, go to www.usafreedomcorps.gov.

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