Big Y is Sacking Hunger

In a chain-wide effort to help the hungry within their local communities, all Big Y’s are participating in Sack Hunger – a large brown reusable grocery bag filled with staple non-perishable food items for  local  food banks. Customers purchase a Sack Hunger bag of groceries for $10 and Big Y distributes the food to that region’s local food bank. In turn, the food banks distribute the filled “sacks” to area soup kitchens, food pantries, senior food programs, daycare centers as well as many of their other member agencies. All of the donated sacks will be distributed within the supermarket’s marketing area so every donation stays within the local community. Since its inception four years ago, over 39,000 bags have been donated to area needy via Big Y’s Sack Hunger Program.  This year’s Sack Hunger Campaign runs from October 31st through December 31st. According to Donald H. D’Amour, chairman and CEO, “Our Sack Hunger program makes it easy for our customers to provide nutritious, non-perishable staple food to those less fortunate within our community.  We all appreciate their efforts to make this a bigger program each year.” All five food banks within Big Y’s marketing area are participating in Sack Hunger. These food banks represent over 2,100 member agencies throughout the region. They are the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, The Greater Boston Food Bank, Worcester County Food Bank, Foodshare of Greater Hartford, and The Connecticut Food Bank. The sacks include the following non-perishable Big Y items: instant rice, elbow macaroni, kidney beans, peanut butter, cut green beans, whole kernel corn, 2 cans of chunk light tuna, sweet peas, and corn flakes. Sacks are available at all 60 Big Y Supermarkets and Fresh Acres. Last year, Big Y customers donated over 16,000 bags of food to those in need.  This year, Big Y hopes to provide at least 20,000 bags to area food programs.