Norfolk Southern said it will contribute $400,000 to 31 food banks in 14 states.
The grants are going to food banks in Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
Norfolk Southern said this week it will award $400,000 in grants to aid 31 food banks in 22 states served by the railroad.
Among the organizations receiving grants were the Central Pennsylvania Foodbank, Community Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Indiana, Facing Hunger Foodbank of West Virginia, Food Bank of Northern Indiana, Food Finders Food Bank of Indiana, Freestore foodbank of Ohio, Gleaners of Indiana, God’s Pantry Food Bank of Kentucky, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, Mid-Ohio Food Bank, Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank and Tri-State Food Bank of Indiana.
In a news release, NS said it was making the grants to help communities battle food insecurity and to battle the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Short line holding company OmniTRAX and its affiliate Northern Ohio & Western Railway are funding 120,000 meals to the West Ohio Food Bank as well as pledging volunteer support.
The food bank, which is affiliated with Feeding America, serves 11 counties.
Another OmniTRAX property, the Winchester & Western, is providing funding of 220,000 meals through eastern West Virginia’s Congregational Cooperative Action Project/Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry.
CSX has joined with The Conservation Fund to give grants to nine charities in seven states to improve their capacity to store and deliver food in their communities.
The grants will range from $5,000 to $10,000. CSX has for the past six year been a sponsor of the Grant Program for Transporting Healthy Food.
The grants will go to organizations in Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New York, North Carolina and Virginia.
This year’s funding will enable the nine recipient organizations to collectively serve an additional 92,000 families with nearly 6 million meals.
Overall, the grant program is projected to enable local food distribution organizations to collectively serve an additional 377,987 families with nearly 50 million pounds of food and increase the number of meals provided by more than 40 million.
Food supplies that were planned to be served to Amtrak passengers are being donated to food banks across the nation rather than seeing that food wasted.
Amtrak officials said they are donating surplus perishiables and short-dated items that otherwise would go unused.
The officials said the food became surplus because of lighter passenger loads and the change to flexible dining in place of full-service dining cars on western long-distance trains.
Food banks receiving the donations include King Majesty Ministries in Chicago; St. Jude’s Community Center in New Orleans; Brookline Food Co-Op in Boston; City Harvest in New York; Central Union Mission in Washington, D.C,; Curley’s House Food Bank in Miami; Northwest Harvest in Seattle; Food Finders in Los Angeles, and Operation Dignity Inc. in Oakland, California.
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