ON Semiconductor Foundation and Oregon Food Bank Partner to Support Community-Led Solutions to Hunger

Each year on May 28, the global community recognizes World Hunger Day with the aim of advocating for sustainable solutions to end hunger and poverty. Over 690 million people, or 8.9% of the population, live in chronic hunger across the world. In the United States alone prior to the pandemic, 10.5% of households experienced food insecurity, and this rate was estimated to double to as many as 23% of households in 2020. A combination of effective tools, sufficient resources, and community-led solutions is essential to help build self-reliance and supportive community networks at the grassroots level to help those experiencing hunger. The ON Semiconductor Foundation has supported nonprofits and food banks dedicated to ending hunger through grants and volunteerism since its inception, with Oregon Food Bank being one grantee partner making significant impact on its local communities. 

Oregon Food Bank serves 866,000 people each year through a food distribution network of 21 regional food banks in Oregon and Clark County, Washington. The organization also leads efforts in these regions to increase resources for hungry families and to eliminate root causes of hunger through public policy, local food systems work, nutrition and garden education, health care screening and innovative programming. 

In August 2020, the ON Semiconductor Foundation awarded a grant to the Oregon Food Bank in support of the Healthy Food Program, which brings fresh, healthy food assistance to children, families and elderly populations facing food insecurity. The COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis that it created brought forth an influx in demand for food within the past year, inciting a need for adaptation and expansion of many of the Oregon Food Bank’s services at a time when nearly one in five state residents faced hunger. We were grateful to help fund this vital program, which distributed 19-million pounds of fresh produce to low-income populations across Oregon and Clark County, Washington. 

With our support, Oregon Food Bank was also able to adapt and meet the needs of the communities they serve amidst the pandemic by expanding food acquisition and distribution operations, collaborating with local groups for home delivery to individuals at heightened risk of illness, providing pre-packaged food, and increasing food deliveries to partner agencies and distribution networks in the area. The organization also successfully distributed one million pounds of food per week to food assistance partners and programs in the local area to serve recipients of which 31% were children and 69% were living below the Federal Poverty Level. 

Don, a community member who visited the Idanha-Detroit, Oregon Community Food Pantry operating under Oregon Food Bank’s network, expressed the following after being affected by last fall's wildfires:

“This has been a lifesaver; I’ll put it that way. And the people that run it and work here are just ready to help, any time you want.”

With an awareness that hunger disproportionately affects communities of color, immigrants and refugees, single mothers, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex and asexual and/or ally (LGBTQIA+) communities and low-wage workers, a key goal of the Oregon Food Bank is to connect with organizations in the local community to ensure equitable and culturally responsive access to fresh, locally grown foods. A growing partnership with Mudbone Grown, a black-owned farm enterprise with expertise in food production models for communities of color, has been one of many collaborations aiming to help communities without enough resources. Organizations including Bridges to Health, Oregon Child Development Coalition and One Community Health have also collaborated with Oregon Food Bank to serve essential migrant farmworkers in rural areas across the Columbia Gorge. 

Yan Medice, corporate & community relations assistant manager at Oregon Food Bank, stated: 

“This whole past year has really amended a lot of people's lives. For folks who have never experienced food insecurity before, for folks who were on the edge and for folks who had been already experiencing hunger this past year, it has been really, really challenging. A silver lining is that folks in our community have really stepped up. We've got amazing donors like you in our community who helped the Oregon Food Bank, as well as folks in the food industry who've made donations. We've got great volunteers. Our staff here has been absolutely amazing. We've been at home and working remotely for the past year, but our drivers, our warehouse staff, all the operations folks, etc. They've been incredible and just working so hard and with such dedication to get food out to people.”

By working diligently to provide community-led solutions to hunger, Oregon Food Bank is driving progress towards meeting Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger in an inclusive, accessible and equitable way by distributing fresh and nutritious food to those who need it most. The ON Semiconductor Foundation was grateful to support this wide-reaching organization, which acted as a lifeline for countless families and individuals across communities in Oregon and Clark County, Washington during the difficult past year. 

For more information about how the ON Semiconductor Foundation helps to support local communities through giving, visit https://www.onsemi.com/about/foundation.