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Fighting Hunger
Food banks can help feed those in need.
Despite its
economic success, some 38 million Americans have
a hard time getting enough to
eat each day. Soup kitchens have
provided free meals for many years, but these places can only help a small
section of
town, and a lot of the leftover food goes
to waste . To ___1___ the needs of a hungry nation and to fight
famine,
the first food bank opened in the 1960s.
John van Hengel was a retired businessman
who enjoyed spending his
free time ___2___ at his local soup kitchen. He started to use his former work
experience to increase the donations for
food at the soup kitchen. Van Hengel soon found that
oftentimes,
people's generosity was
greater than the needs of his small community, and ___3___ his soup kitchen had
too much food. About the same time, someone mentioned to van Hengel that every
day, supermarkets were ___4___ food that was
edible but
couldn't be sold. Van Hengel decided to organize the
different charities,
supermarkets, and nearby farms
together, ___5___ all the food in the first food bank. This bank would then offer the
food to soup
kitchens and homeless ___6___ all over the city.
___7___ van Hengel's work, in 1976 his food bank became a
nationwide non-profit organization.
Today, food banks in countries all over the world follow this model to help the
hungry no
matter where they live. |
