About FlashAlert on Twitter:
FlashAlert utilizes the free service Twitter to distribute emergency text messages. While you are welcome to register your cell phone text message address directly into the FlashAlert system, we recommend that you simply "follow" the FlashAlert account for Oregon Food Bank by clicking on the link below and logging in to (or creating) your free Twitter account. Twitter sends messages out exceptionally fast thanks to arrangements they have made with the cell phone companies.
Click here to add Oregon Food Bank to your Twitter account or create one.
@oregonfoodbank
MEDIA ADVISORY/PHOTO OPPORTUNITY:
Oregon Food Bank to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy on MLK Day of Service with help of 525 volunteers
WHAT: MLK Day of Service
MLK Day of Service has transformed the King Holiday into a day of citizen action. To honor Dr. King, Oregon Food Bank will open its doors for volunteers to take action against poverty and help our neighbors who experience hunger.
WHEN: Monday, January 21, 2019, 9 - 11:30 a.m.
WHERE: Oregon Food Bank, 7900 NE 33rd Drive, Portland
WHO: 525 volunteers
Volunteers from Bank of America (presenting sponsor), Pacific Power (supporting sponsor), and other local companies such as Oregon Health Authority, Nike, Opsis Architecture, Act-On Software – along with individuals and families – will process and repack thousands of pounds of food to help 1 in 8 neighbors who experience hunger and poverty in our community.
WHY: “The time is always right to do what’s right.” – Dr. King
In the months leading up to his assassination, Reverend King organized the Poor People’s Campaign. When he looked across America, he saw people and families of all races, cultures and communities that were hungry, houseless, unemployed and underpaid. He began to organize a multi-racial movement of people to dismantle the systems of inequality that created conditions of poverty for so many communities.
“If a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness,” said Reverend King in his last sermon. “He merely exists.”
Dr. King was killed before the campaign could realize its full potential. But, the Poor People’s Campaign brought about an expansion of school meals and Head Start programs for children in the south; it caused the United States Department of Agriculture to release surplus food commodities to the country’s poorest counties; it expanded the food stamp program and made the welfare system easier to navigate.
“Like Dr. King, Oregon Food Bank envisions a community where each person can participate, prosper and have access to nutritious food,” said Susannah Morgan, Oregon Food Bank CEO. “We recognize that systemic injustices exist – such as racism, classism, and sexism – and that these create and perpetuate conditions that sustain poverty and hunger. With the support of the community, we work to ensure that everyone who is hungry today has food today. At the same time, we are working to change conditions and policies so that hunger no longer exists.”
About Oregon Food Bank
Oregon Food Bank works to eliminate hunger and its root causes... because no one should be hungry. Oregon Food Bank believes that hunger starves the human spirit, that communities thrive when people are nourished, and that everyone deserves healthy and fresh food. Oregon Food Bank helps feed the human spirit of 740,000 people through a food distribution network of 21 regional food banks serving Oregon and Clark County, Washington. Oregon Food Bank also leads statewide efforts to increase resources for hungry families and to eliminate the root causes of hunger through public policy, local food systems work, nutrition and garden education, health care screening and innovative programming. Find out how to feed the human spirit at oregonfoodbank.org.
###