Foodlink and 21 area Wegmans Food Markets are partnering to help fight childhood hunger.
That's through the new "Fill the Bus" campaign - designed to support the food bank's BackPack program.
There's a "wish list" of items that customers can pick up at the customer service desk before shopping.
"The list includes items that are intended to be nutritious and easily prepared like tuna fish, peanut butter and canned soup,” says Amy Pasley, store manager of the Calkins Road Wegmans, says Customers can purchase the products they want to donate and drop them off in our “Fill the Bus” collection bins at the front of every store."
Once store bins are full, Foodlink will drop off the food to area school districts where they will distribute the items to students.
Julia Tedesco is the chief development officer at Foodlink. She says the BackPack program aims to make sure students don't go hungry on weekends and school breaks.
"We fill a bag with nutritious friendly food and we discretely put it into a child's backpack on a Friday afternoon before they go home. The idea is that they will have approximately enough food for about six meals that weekend and make sure they don't miss a single meal."
Tedesco says there are 80,000 kids in their 10-county service area that receive free and reduced meals at school. She says Foodlink hopes the "Fill the Bus" food drive will benefit about 2,000 kids.
The food drive runs until October 25th.
