H-E-B chairman donates $20M of his own money to Texas food banks

H-E-B Chairman Charles Butt is making a $20 million personal gift to support all 20 food banks across the state that are part of the Feeding Texas network, the company said.

According to Feeding Texas, 4 million people in Texas experience food insecurity, and 20% of those are children.

“The thought of children going hungry anywhere is painful, but to have that happen here in Texas is unacceptable,” said Butt. “My aim is to support access to essential food programs and invest in solutions for Texans. By supporting the hunger relief efforts of these dedicated organizations, we hope to make a meaningful and positive impact across the state.”

The 20 food banks that are part of the Feeding Texas network support local hunger relief organizations in every county in the state. In addition to distributing food to its local partner agencies, the food banks also provide services, such as SNAP application assistance, nutrition education, health screenings, and job training, among other activities, such as mobile food distribution in underserved areas.

The $20 million donation from Butt will go directly to each of the 20 food banks in the network to support their acquisition and distribution of food and other resources to meet the needs in their communities, Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, told Supermarket News.

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“This donation is a significant gift at a time when all food banks in Texas are struggling to meet the need for emergency food, which is approaching levels we saw during the pandemic,” she said.

The heightened need is largely due to food-price inflation, the end of pandemic-era benefits such as the SNAP emergency allotments and the expanded Child Tax Credit, and the delays in SNAP application processing, Cole said.

“At the same time that the need for charitable food assistance has gone up, food banks have experienced a significant drop off in federal support through TEFAP [the emergency food assistance program from USDA] since the end of the pandemic, which is affecting their ability to keep pace with demand,” she said.

Trisha Cunningham, president and CEO of North Texas Food Bank, one of the Feeding Texas members, said her organization is providing access to even more meals than during the pandemic.

“While unemployment is low, underemployment has caused many middle class families to now need assistance that have never needed it before as their paychecks just can’t cover the increased cost of basic needs that they used to be able to cover,” she said.

Cunningham cited research that showed Texas as having the highest number of food-insecure people in the country in 2022.

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“We have been feeding these increased needs, and the study validates what we have been seeing,” she said, adding that the North Texas Food Bank began the fiscal year with a deficit budget so that it could purchase additional food.

“This generous gift from Charles Butt and the continued support of H-E-B on alleviating food insecurity will help us ensure we can continue to support our mission of a hunger-free Texas,” said Cunningham. “It takes all of us working together — feeding networks, donors, elected officials, the community — to tackle these issues.”

H-E-B, which is known for its community involvement as well as its pride in being a Texas company, has sought to address hunger since its founding in 1905, the company said. Last year, H-E-B’s Hunger Relief program donated more than 33 million pounds of food to families in need. Since 1982, the program has donated more than 1 billion pounds of food to 5,500 non-profit organizations in Texas and Mexico, where it also operates stores.

The retailer supports food banks and hunger relief programs such as summer feeding for children who are out of school. It also conducts an annual H-E-B Help End Hunger donation campaign, and 34 H-E-B Feast of Sharing dinners across Texas and Mexico during the holidays.