Thanksgiving week is upon us. It's one of the busiest times for food retailing, but it's also the perfect time to look away from business briefly to see what the food industry is doing in ways that can't be measured by cash flow and profit margin.
There are many ways in which those in the food industry and in countless other endeavors take action this week to help the less fortunate. But here's one notable activity of the industry's own nonprofit Food Industry Crusade Against Hunger: This week staff members of FICAH and the Food Marketing Institute plan to gather for an afternoon of volunteer work at the District of Columbia Central Kitchen. The group will also present the kitchen a $25,000 check in honor of the memory of the late Harry Sullivan. He was senior vice president for public affairs and general counsel at the FMI. He was also FICAH's founding legal counsel. At the time of his death more than a year ago, his family requested that in lieu of flowers contributions be made to FICAH. Nearly 120 individuals and corporations did so, and now that largess comes to fruition.
That type of effort is reminiscent of what motivated the food-industry executives who founded FICAH a baker's dozen years ago.
Since that time, FICAH has gone through a long metamorphosis and has now emerged as a new and broader entity. It was about two years ago that an agreement was struck that would merge FICAH and a similar organization, Food For All. The long process of legal and actual integration of those two entities is now complete.
FICAH's mission is now much larger. Its current mission is to fund a wider variety of antihunger programs, most in this country, although attention is still paid to projects worldwide. A significant proportion of FICAH's funding comes from what's now known as the Food For All campaign, a point-of-purchase shopper-donation program in more than 6,000 supermarkets during the year-end holiday period. It's in more than 1,000 stores year-round. The year-round program is achieving various levels of success, but frankly could use more supermarket participants, especially in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Other ways funds are raised for FICAH include corporate contributions and special events such as golf tournaments, one in conjunction with the FMI Midwinter Executive Conference and another hosted by the Association of Sales and Marketing Cos. along with retailer Smart & Final. Individual contributions of cash and securities make up another funding source. Next year's Golf Invitational at FMI Midwinter will be Jan. 25 at that meeting.
Incidentally, FICAH funds four programs in hurricane-devastated Honduras. They are agriculture, dairy cattle and forestry projects. As of last week, all were up and running, but many of the programs' clients and staff lost everything in the storm. FICAH isn't a relief agency, but plans call for FICAH to make a special one-time appropriation to the area. (For more on relief to Central America, see the letter to the editor on this page.)
FICAH, of which I am a trustee, is by no means the only antihunger program of merit, or which attracts industry support, but its roots are deep in the industry and it's worthy of participation.
