SUPERMARKET DRIVE FOR FOOD BANKS BEGINS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993                   TAG: 9302210245
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DIANE SIMPSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
SUPERMARKET DRIVE FOR FOOD BANKS BEGINS
The Federation of Virginia's Food Banks is sponsoring the first statewide food drive, Check Out Hunger, to begin Monday at local supermarkets.
Eight major retailers with over 300 stores, including Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc., Kroger Co., IGA, Winn-Dixie Delicatessen and Lowe's, will take part in the first joint effort by Virginia supermarket chains.
"We feel and know that there is a great need out there," said Harris Teeter Co-Manager Tom Webster. "We want our shoppers to please give all that they can to help offset hunger in our neighborhood."
Kroger has been an active participant in food bank programs since 1984, said Leonard Terranova, mid-Atlantic merchandising vice president for 113 Kroger stores. Thirty-four Kroger stores throughout Virginia will participate.
Virginia's Food Banks got the idea for Check Out Hunger from a program that debuted about two years ago in New Jersey and another held in New York last year.
Shoppers at Check Out Hunger stores will find displays in the checkout aisles with tear-off, bar-coded coupons. For every coupon handed to the cashier, a dollar will be added to the customer's grocery bill. But for the Check Out Hunger program, one dollar spent "will purchase up to $15 in food banking," said Pam Irvine, Southwestern Virginia director of the Second Harvest Food Bank.
Second Harvest Food Bank in Roanoke, part of the Total Action Against Poverty agency, serves 25 counties and 15 cities in Southwest Virginia and distributed about 1.5 million meals and over 300 million pounds of free food last year to needy area families.
About "43 percent live at or below 80 percent of the median income in Southwestern Virginia," Irvine said. "Fourteen percent of the elderly in Roanoke City live the below-the-poverty level."
The Federation of Virginia Food Banks hopes to raise over $200,000 in the drive that ends April 3. Virginia's Food Banks and 2,465 charitable organizations provide free food for the needy.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB