Social Impact & Volunteering

Atlas Copco Aids in Stopping Hunger on World Food Day

Jan 18, 2016 9:15 AM ET
Campaign: Atlas Copco: Empowering Our Communities

The math doesn’t quite add up. There’s enough food produced each year to feed every person on the planet, yet one out of nine people continue to live with chronic hunger. That’s why Atlas Copco Compressor employees played an active role in helping make those numbers match by participating in World Food Day on October 16.

Backed by the resources at Stop Hunger Now, an international Raleigh, N.C.-based meal-packaging organizer, Atlas Copco packaged 10,152 nutrient-rich meals at its Rock Hill, S.C. headquarters on World Hunger Day. The event provided the Atlas Copco team with an opportunity to make a true, hands-on difference by using local resources to fight a global issue.

Volunteers set up packaging stations and equipment, filled bins with raw ingredients, scooped ingredients into meal bags, weighed and sealed the bags, boxed and stacked them on pallets, and loaded the pallets and equipment onto a truck. With nearly 50 Atlas Copco volunteers on hand, the team completed their goal in fewer than two hours. From the building on Overview Drive, Atlas Copco made a difference that will impact tens of thousands of people around the world.

Consider these facts from World Hunger Day:

  • Under nutrition is a factor in more than 1/3 of the deaths of all children under the age of five;
  • One-third of the food produced for human consumption in the world each year, about 1.3 billion tons, is lost or wasted;
  • Hunger kills more people each year than malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS – combined;
  • If women had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry people in the world could be reduced by as many as 150 million.

Stop Hunger Now was founded in 1998 and has since provided more than 225 million meals to people in 73 countries. From its North Carolina location, Stop Hunger Now organizes operations in 18 additional U.S. cities, as well as locations in South Africa, Malaysia, India, Italy and the Philippines, all with the vision of helping create a world without hunger. In 2015 alone, the group packaged 45 million meals and shipped more than $9 million in donated aid, primarily in the form of nutritional vitamins and medical supplies.

By partnering with responsible corporate citizens like Atlas Copco, the group has helped engage more than 500,000 volunteers across varying faiths, corporate identities, academic institutions and civic organizations. By educating volunteers about the tremendous global need, they also help inspire them to make a difference in ending hunger, showing that local action can have a worldwide reach.