July 07, 2003
Waterfront Blues Festival Attendees Set Donation Record
You've doubtless heard the news by now. This year's Waterfront Blues Festival -- which every year raises money for the Oregon Food Bank -- set a donation record.
According to Jean Kempe-Ware of the OFB, the truck filled with the food donations is still on site and has yet to be weighed. Expect news on that aspect of the donations tomorrow (although one of the local news broadcasts claimed, without giving any indication as to the source of this information, "100,000 cans of food" were donated).
"But," Kempe-Ware continued, "I do have a final figure on the monetary donations: $363,000. It's definitely a record. That compares to $310,000 last year when we had a five-day festival. This one was 3-1/2 days."
One statistic I wish I had was the percentage of festival attendees are actually Oregonians. I suspect it's high, which if true would show that despite -- or perhaps due to -- the dire economic situation here, Oregonians themselves stepped up to the plate with record amounts of money and food for the state's hungry.
Some other important statistics via the Festival's website:
Oregon remains first in the nation for hunger, and the number of people who are hungry continues to grow. Those most likely to need emergency food are families and children. Most adults who receive emergency food are working, retired or disabled. And two-parent families make up the largest group of those receiving emergency food.
Oregon Food Bank Network’s 317 food pantries distributed emergency food boxes to an estimated 720,000 people who are hungry in Oregon and Clark County, Wash., between July 1, 2001, and June 30, 2002. That’s up 10 percent from the previous year. A typical food box provides a three-to-five-day supply of groceries.
And while we await the total on food donations, keep this factoid in mind: For every dollar donated, Oregon Food Bank can collect and distribute $10 worth of food. I'll leave the reader to do the math.