America's Second Harvest

-- "The Nation's Food Bank Network" and a recipient of a 1999 award from NTIA's Technology Opportunities Program -- has obtained and distributed more than 16 million pounds of food, water and essential grocery supplies to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. By the beginning of this week, the Network had secured and dispatched 487 trucks, carrying 16.5 million pounds of supplies (about 12.9 million meals) to the affected areas. The award Second Harvest received from TOP in 1999 helped create a model demonstrating that connectivity and data sharing can result in a better supply chain for relief products. The Network secures supplies and then moves them to local food banks that pack 25 pound relief boxes to go to the more than 200 emergency shelters in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and the surrounding states where hundreds of thousands of evacuees are moving. Second Harvest is the nation's largest charitable hunger-relief organization with a Network of more than 200 regional member food banks and food - rescue programs serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The Network secures and distributes nearly two billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually. The Network supports approximately 50,000 local charitable agencies operating more than 94,000 programs including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs, and Kids Cafes. Last year, the Network provided food assistance to more than 23 million low-income hungry people in the United States, including more than nine million children and nearly three million seniors.