Font ResizeA throng of volunteers sorted and boxed a river of edibles flowing into the Utah Food Bank on Saturday, hoping to keep up with mounting requests from hungry Utahns struggling to feed their families.
Students, grandparents, church members and other folks who offered their time picked through enormous boxes, each brimming with 1,500 pounds of canned, bagged and bottled food donations.
The donations were broken down into categories, put in smaller boxes and stacked in another part of the building on Salt Lake City's west side for shipment to 125 emergency-food pantries and social service agencies around the state.
"Our goal is to collect 100,000 pounds of food today. It's a lofty goal," said food bank spokeswoman Jessica Pugh.
"But, given that the requests for food have increased 40 percent since the economic downturn began, we need lofty goals to ensure that individuals and families receive food assistance," Pugh said.
The food-sorting affair was part a larger annual service event honoring Lowell Bennion, a former University of Utah sociology professor and director of the campus LDS Institute of Religion. He founded the Utah Food Bank in 1977.
The Lowell Bennion Community Service Center at the university organized Saturday's event, which was made up of seven other service projects, in addition to boxing food.
They included literacy book fairs at Parkview Elementary and Guadalupe schools, which provide education
One of the volunteers at the food bank was Lowell Bennion Jr., who said his father would be astounded by the number of people who responded to the community service center's plea for assistance. There was no official count of volunteers, but organizers were expecting hundreds of people to take part.
"I'm sure it would astonish him if he could come back and see how large an operation is in place," said Bennion, 74, who brought four grandchildren with him Saturday. "He started the food bank on a very small scale, and to see how it has grown would astonish him."
Located on 700 West in Salt Lake City, the food bank has roughly 45,000 square feet of floor space. By Nov. 1, though, the food bank will have moved to a bigger building on 900 West with almost twice the space.
It's a testament to the need that exists in Utah for food assistance, Pugh said, adding that Utah is ranked fourth in the U.S. for the highest rate of "food insecurity."
About 346,000 Utahns are at risk every day of missing or skipping a meal because they can't afford one, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture study in 2007.
""I just know that the gap between the ones that have and the ones that have not is getting bigger, bigger and bigger," said Arlen Craghead, 79, an LDS Church service missionary assigned to the food bank.
The rescue operation is set up to serve all of Utah, and the donations that volunteers were sorting on Saturday originated largely at Smith's Food and Drug stores across the state that agreed to serve as drop-off points. Trucks were expected to deliver the food to the food bank all day for sorting and boxing; trucks would later carry the food to the pantries and agencies for distribution to hungry Utahns.
"I'm aware that [the need] is greater than it's been in a very long time, considering the economic downturn that we are in," said Eric Lindsey, 56, one of about 500 Mormons who took part in the community-service day.
"In any economic downturn, there are going to be a lot of people who are unemployed. We're just glad we are here to help," Lindsey said.
