Left to right: Amelia Valesek, Idaho Foodbank Grant Coordinator; Janelle Billings, Assistant Vice President, Bank of America; Karen Vauk. Idaho Foodbank President and CEO; and Teri McColly, Idaho Foodbank Donor Relations Manager.

The Idaho Foodbank has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Bank of America Foundation to help sustain the Foodbank’s nutrition programs. The Bank of America Foundation has been a strong supporter of the Foodbank’s services and programs for several years.

Nutrition programs provided by the Foodbank include Cooking Matters, Backpack Program, School Pantry, Mobile Pantry and Picnic in the Park.

Cooking Matters is a free, six-week class that teaches parents and kids how to shop for and prepare healthy, inexpensive meals.

The Backpack Program supplies nutritious, wholesome food over school-year weekends to children at risk of hunger when they do not have access to school food programs. There are currently over 2,000 Idaho children who receive the weekly backpacks.

School Pantry also provides an accessible source of food assistance to low-income students and their families. The Mobile Pantry program distributes dry and frozen food to underserved, usually rural communities.  The Picnic in the Park Program provides nutrition for food-insecure children during the summer months when the school lunch they depended on is unavailable. The program helps fill the nutritional gap so children can get the food they need.

The Idaho Foodbank thanks the Bank of America for this generous gift to help keep these important programs active in Idaho.

Gov. Butch Otter, Dadiri Nuro, Bishop Brian Thom and volunteers with produce from the Somali Bantu farm in Eagle.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter grew up in a family with nine children. There were times when he and his siblings needed food assistance from St. Vincent de Paul. Those memories came back to him when he signed the proclamation that named October “Hunger and Food Security Awareness Month” in advance of the fourth Idaho Summit on Hunger and Food Security set for Oct. 30 in Boise.

“I can relate,” he told the audience of anti-hunger workers who assembled in his office.

The Rt. Rev. Brian Thom spoke of how important it was for the entire community to address the hunger issue. Dadiri Nuro, a leader of the Somali Bantu community and a new American citizen, described the struggles his people have been through and how important it was for them to grow their own crops at the Global Gardens farm in Eagle.