According to a new study by Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County and Feeding America, more than 277,000 people in Orange County, California need the help of Second Harvest and its community partners to feed themselves and their families. Some of those families will benefit from a generous donation of 217,667 pounds of produce, made possible by exhibitors of the PMA Fresh Summit Convention and Expo held October 17-19 in Anaheim.

The fresh produce was collected from the convention center expo hall by approximately 300 volunteers from the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County. The food bank is a chapter of Feeding America, a national non-profit organization that works to feed more than 37 million people a year.

Over the past decade, PMA exhibitors have donated more than 2.9 million pounds of fresh produce to communities in need in the United States.

"Feeding America is extremely grateful to PMA’s exhibitors who have gone to great effort to provide this generous donation of fresh produce to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County,” said Bob Aiken CEO of Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. “PMA goes to great lengths every year to rescue, package and transport a considerable amount of nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables to our member food banks, so that they can be distributed to low-income Americans, who are in need of food assistance. Feeding America will provide food to 46 million Americans this year, including 12 million children and 7 million seniors.”