The Tyson Foods Denison RAGBRAI Team

Tyson's Jenise Huffman appeared on the CBS Early Show today to announce a donation of a truckload of Tyson products in support of the network's Facing Hunger, Feeding America food drive.  The food drive is a great effort on behalf of CBS and their affiliates to replinish stocks of the member food banks of America's Second Harvest--the Nation's Food Bank Network. 

Jenise happens to be in New York, on a paid leave from Tyson Foods to work with Millennium Promise, exploring ways to address hunger and poverty in Africa.  She'll be making some contribuitions to this site, reporting on her experiences with the organization.

Many thanks to CBS and America's Second Harvest (a phenomenal partner!) for allowing Tyson Foods to be part of this effort. Thanks also to Mike Barnwell and Skip Stephens from BEM Sales and Marketing, and to Melissa Baer from Sunshine, Sachs & Associates for their invaluable roles in making this happen. 

A donation commemorating 50 million pounds of Tyson products donated to hunger relief since 2000 was made at the Arkansas Capitol on February 6, 2008.

In May of 2000, Tyson Foods made a formal commitment to play an important role in the fight against hunger.  At that time, we pledged to donate ten million pounds of Tyson products over a three year period, to organizations feeding hungry people.  

On February 6, Tyson made a donation representing 50 million pounds of food donated to hunger and disaster relief since our initial commitment.  That’s protein for 200 million meals.

If you filled trucks with all of that product and lined them bumper-to-bumper, the line would stretch for twenty miles.  That’s a lot of hungry people fed.

Additionally, Tyson Team Members all across the company have become personally and passionately engaged in the fight against hunger in their own communities, volunteering  with food banks and food pantries, and raising funds for childhood hunger in Powering the Spirit campaigns.

This remarkable milestone is possible because of the hard work of all Tyson Team Members, who contribute to making and selling our products.  Each of us should be proud of our own part in this contribution. 

At Tyson, we stay in business by selling food to people who can afford it.  It’s only right that we’re also in the business of helping people who can’t afford it. 

OKLAHOMA CITY – Dec. 20, 2007 –   Two years have passed since Jonathan Crider first heard the public service announcement saying kids his age living nearby were going hungry.  Now at age 13, he has rallied his hometown community of Lawton to raise more than $20,000 for Food 4 Kids to help feed more than 100 children in Lawton public schools for an entire school year.

Jonathan can also add earning a truckload of much needed protein from Tyson Foods for the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma to his list of accomplishments. “Jonathan Crider is teaching all of us a lesson in serving and giving,” said Ed Nicholson, director of community relations for Tyson Foods. “We’re making this donation in honor of his great work in the community and his online nomination made on our company’s new hunger relief website,” added Nicholson.   The website, hungerrelief.tyson.com, is dedicated to those who work tirelessly in the fight against hunger, especially around the holidays and after times of natural disaster, like Oklahoma has experienced during the past week.  Tyson Foods plans to select monthly winners from nominations for Hunger All-Stars submitted on the website. Jonathan was nominated by the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.

The donation is part of Tyson’s ongoing commitment to lead and support hunger-relief initiatives. Since 2000, the company has donated $3 million and 49.1 million pounds of chicken, beef and pork products to more than 600 hunger-relief agencies nationwide.

Pictured above:  Vicki Escarra, President and CEO of America's Second Harvest; Susan Brockway, Tyson Community Relations Manager; Peter Dunn, President of the Board, America's Second Harvest.

 Tyson donated more than four million pounds of poultry and meat products last year to member food banks of America's Second Harvest--the Nation's Food Bank Network.  As a result of these donatons, Tyson was named the 2007 America's Second Harvest Protein Donor of the Year.
 Tyson’s support also includes workshop presentations at the America’s Second Harvest annual Food Conference; involvement of company Team Members at local food bank events; introduction of America's Second Harvest as a partner with Tyson and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in an initiative focused on hunger in the Hispanic and Latino communities; support of Hunger Awareness Day; and recent disaster support for member food banks affected by flooding in the Midwest.