Michele Obama, the nation's new grocer-in-chief, is doing her part to help local food banks with lots of volunteer hours, the rest of the president's team is coming up short in a program to feed the needy.
According to new figures from "Feds Feed Families," an Obama administration initiatives, the White House is in the bottom quarter of 36 federal agencies collecting food for Washington's Capital Area Food Bank, and those in other cities.
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The goal of the annual summer program is two million pounds of food. The White House, has collected 332 pounds, ranking it 27th of the 36 participating agencies. That's in the middle of so-called "petite" agencies with small staffs like the Federal Communications Commission, which has donated 3,035 pounds so far this summer. There are two more collection dates before the program ends in August.
As in the past, the Agriculture Department tops the list, having collected 103,101 pounds so far.
In 2010, the program collected 1.7 million pounds of food.
Despite her efforts to grow and plan a victory vegetable garden, encourage kids to eat less sugar and now her deal to get grocery stores to bring fresh foods to poor areas of the nation, Michelle Obama has some work to do inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But Feds Feed Families has clearly heard her, asking for goods that are healthy and salt free, like Grape-Nuts for breakfast and couscous for side dishes.
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Reader Comments Read all comments (1)
Gary Oppenheimer of NJ 1:47PM July 21, 2011