Tyson Foods Steps up to the Hunger Challenge. Again.

The San Francisco Food Bank, Tyson Foods and Social Media Club San Francisco are working together to increase awareness around the issue of hunger during the 2009 Hunger Challenge taking place this week:  September 20-26.

Tyson has graciously offered to donate truck loads of food based on our ability to use Social Media tools to  spread the word in support of our local food banks. 

From Tyson’s blog:

There’s a list of hunger facts below.  All Tweetable.  Tweet  or retweet any of them with the hashtag  #HChal and Tyson Foods will make a 100 pound donation (up to a total of 100,000 pounds) to the San Francisco Food Bank. Blog about this effort and we’ll donate 500 pounds.  Or comment to this post with your own verifiable fact (not opinion)  about hunger and we’ll donate 100 pounds.   That’s all you have to do. Let’s see how far and fast we can spread these facts out there in Twittervillle. If you’d like to make reference to this post, here’s a shortened URL:  http://bit.ly/sBE9x

Tweetable Facts About Hunger

• More than 35 mil. people in the U.S. are on food stamps–up 3 million since Jan.  #HChal
• App. 40% of families now on food stamps have “earned income”–up from just 25% 2 years ago.  #HChal
• For every $1 donated @SFFoodBank can distribute $9 worth of groceries. #HChal #hungeraction
• In San Francisco, 150K people are unsure where their next meal is coming from. #HChal #hungeraction
• 1 in 4 San Francisco children lack reg.access to food they need to learn, grow, & have a healthy start in life. #HChal
• 1 in 5 San Francisco adults can’t count on daily meals they need to lead healthy, productive lives. #HChal
• 1 in 4 San Francisco seniors lack the nourishment need to control chronic health problems. #HChal
• .@SFFoodBank distributed over 33.5 million pounds of food in the past year–nearly 8% more than the year before. #HChal
• 60% of the clients @SFFoodBank served last year come from working families.  #HChal
• In CA, the average food stamp recipient gets $4 a day to spend on food.  #HChal #hungeraction
• In CA, a single person can get food stamps only if their yearly gross income is $14,079 or less. #HChal
• 5.3 mil. Californians are living below the federal poverty line ($21,834 for a family of 4) #HChal
• The number of households participating in @SFFoodbank’s grocery pantry program is up 24% over last year. #HChal

Bonus Challenge:

Social Media Club would like to up the anty and asks everyone to donate $5 this month. Forget the latte for one day, and help feed a family of four. If you do not have the $5 to donate, the food banks could always use food – their most-needed foods include rice and pasta, canned fruits and vegetables, tuna or other canned meats, soups and stews, peanut butter, and cereal. You can find a local drop off center near you.

I hope you will help us reach that goal of donating 100,000 pounds of food. Would be awesome to raise $10,000 this month too. Can we do it?