Bank of America supports Foodshare

In the last two weeks, Bank of America has really stepped up to help Foodshare meet our mission of ending hunger in greater Hartford.

In addition to hosting Turkey Tuesday back on November 15 and having dozens of bank employees involved in donating and volunteering that day, bank President Kevin Cunningham presented me with a $20,000 donation to support Foodshare's work.


Then last week, the Bank held their annual Neighborhood Excellence Initiative awards program for organizations and volunteers in the Hartford area.


Jim and Sandy Varney were honored with the "Local Hero" award for their work with Foodshare.  Jim and Sandy grow vegetables on their four acres of land in South Windsor.  They spend their own money to buy the seeds and tools and put a tremendous amount of time into recruiting and training volunteers to do the planting, weeding, and harvesting.  Over the last few years, they have grown and donated 91,887 pounds of healthy fresh produce to Foodshare.

Bank of America provides a $5,000 donation to the charity of each Local Hero winner's choice and the Varney's chose Foodshare to receive this gift.  Unfortunately, Jim could not be at the awards ceremony, but Sandy was on hand to accept the award.

This might seem like a year’s worth of activity, but it really does just represent a good week out of year-round involvement from Bank of America.  In fact, this year they will be a part of Foodshare’s President’s Circle for their employee involvement.  In addition to their financial support and coordination of Turkey Tuesday, Bank of America team members volunteer regularly at the Regional Market (like the group pictured below who were helping out last April), formed a Walk Against Hunger Team, got an article about Foodshare placed in their employee communications, and hosted a Hunger 101 program this year!