Spirit of Giving Awards. Courtesy photo.
VENTURA COUNTY — From November 28th to December 14th, Dole Packaged Foods and FOOD Share of Ventura County collaborated on their first inaugural Spirit of Giving school food drive to empower local students to give back to those less fortunate than themselves. The food drive raised 12,700 pounds of food to help feed the 1 in 6 Ventura County residents who is still food insecure.
Over 13 schools across Ventura County participated, and the winning elementary, middle, and high schools were honored in a ceremony held at the Dole Packaged Foods headquarters in Westlake Village on Friday December 16th. The Spirit of Giving food drive commemorated and captured the essence of Dole’s “Spirit of Hawaii” float for the 128th annual Tournament of Roses Parade, and the awards ceremony was held in conjunction with Dole’s employee float decorating day. Winning elementary schools were awarded Captain Planet Foundation Learning Gardens, while the top-performing middle and elementary schools received $1,000 in funding for their science programs. All winners returned to their campuses with unique trophies which are sure to be displayed proudly for the year ahead.
“Dole Packaged Foods was proud to partner with FOOD Share and the Captain Planet Foundation for the Spirit of Giving 2016 Ventura County Food Drive,” said Barbara Vass, Sr. Director of Marketing, Dole Packaged Foods. “As a provider of healthy food products that are affordable to all, we’re uniquely positioned to fight hunger in Ventura County, and we share the commitment of both organizations to enhancing student knowledge of nutrition and the environment. We’re very excited about the enthusiastic participation and results of this food drive!”
The winning schools were based on total pounds of food collected. Dos Caminos Elementary, Santa Rosa School, Tierra Linda School, San Cayetano Elementary, Piru Elementary, Olivelands, and Briggs Elementary received top honors in the K-8 category, with Las Colinas School and Fillmore High School taking home the awards in the middle and high school categories.
“FOOD Share is so grateful for the ongoing and dedicated support of our Ventura County schools,” said Bonnie Atmore, President & CEO of FOOD Share of Ventura County. “We are so excited to be able to Thank and honor them through this powerful collaboration with Dole Packaged Foods and the Captain Planet Foundation. Some of the schools that raised the most food are in the most food insecure areas of our county. That just goes to show you how impactful the Spirit of Giving food drive has been and how passionate our friends and neighbors are about solving hunger in our communities.”
About FOOD Share: More than 35 years ago, eight citizens performed a good deed by distributing food to those who were in need underneath a Ventura bridge. The early philanthropic movement quickly formed into what is now Ventura County’s regional food bank, FOOD Share, which has grown from serving a few hundred hungry people per month to 74,500 people. Today, staff and volunteers distribute more than 12 million pounds of food, or 10 million meals annually from its distribution site; more than 180 partner agencies, which include neighborhood and church food distributions and soup kitchens; as well as hunger assistance programs. FOOD Share’s programs provide healthy nutrition and education to children, families and seniors, which include: KIDS’ Farmers’ Market, SENIOR Share, Nutrition Education, Community Market, and more. The regional food bank’s Feed the Line, Shorten the Line efforts draw together community stakeholders and other non-profit and community service organizations through programs such as Our Voice and the FOOD Share and Friends Mobile Pantry to provide county-wide access to resources that facilitate self-sustainability. A 501(c)3 non-profit organization, FOOD Share is a member of the Feeding America network, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization.
In 2016, FOOD Share is rallying the community behind a viral initiative encouraging the public, local businesses, major corporations and community leaders and stakeholders to help combat hunger through an outreach campaign called Share16. The Share16 Challenge asks the community to share ways in which they support FOOD Share by documenting their experiences and efforts on social media with the #Share16 hashtag.
For more information about FOOD Share, visit www.foodshare.com. Find us on Facebook , Instagram, and Twitter.
About Dole Packaged Foods: Dole Packaged Foods is a world leader in growing, sourcing, distributing and marketing fruit and healthy snacks. Dole sells a full-line of packaged ambient fruit, frozen fruit, dried fruit, and juices. The company focuses on four pillars of sustainability in all its operations: water management, carbon footprint, soil conservation and packaging. For more information please visit dolesunshine.com or doleintlcsr.com.
About Captain Planet Foundation: Based on the critically-acclaimed animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers, CPF was co-founded in 1991 by media mogul Ted Turner and producer Barbara Pyle. Since then, the Captain Planet Foundation has played a critical role in helping to ensure that the next generation of business leaders and policy makers are environmentally literate citizens who leverage technology and information to manage and protect the air, land, and water upon which all life depends.
CPF is a grant-making foundation that has funded over 2,000 hands-on environmental education projects with schools and non-profits that serve children in all 50 U.S. states and in 23 countries internationally. More than 1.2 million children have directly participated in and benefited from these educational projects. In addition to its Small Grants Program, the Captain Planet Foundation also operates the following programs: Project Learning Garden, the Leadership Center, SAGES, Planeteer Clubs, and a number of other science education initiatives that exploit the intersections between technology, innovation, the environment and personal action. For more information: www.captainplanetfdn.org