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Wegmans raises over $688,000 for hunger and local food banks

Dec 14, 2010

Wegmans shoppers at 22 stores in the Rochester, New York, region raised $688,214 for its Check Out Hunger campaign, up 11 percent from last year's dividends, according to the Henrietta Post.

The campaign lasted five weeks and ended on Thanksgiving weekend, prompting shoppers to donate installments of $2, $3 or $5 to Foodlink during checkout.

There was a new feature this year that also allowed customers to round purchases up to the next dollar to donate change to the fund. Wegmans community relations manager Linda Lovejoy told the news source that this feature contributed at least $40,000 on its own.

"Over the past two years, we have seen a 32 percent increase in the need for emergency food assistance. In this period of economic decline, we would not have been able to meet the needs of the 150,000 individuals facing hunger in our region were it not for the increased support of Wegmans," Foodlink founder Tom Ferraro told NBC affiliate WHEC.

Wegmans has contributed over $16 million to hunger relief efforts since the inception of Check Out Hunger in 1993, according to the news source.

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