Connecticut Food Bank receives $20,000 grant from The Dunkin' Donuts & Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation

Connecticut Food Bank is the recipient of a $20,000 grant from The Dunkin’ Donuts & Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation (DDBRCF). The grant will support Connecticut Food Bank’s Kids’ Backpack Program which provides more than 3,000 hungry children from more than 100 schools with nutritious and easy-to-prepare food to take home on weekends and school vacations when other resources are not available. This grant will provide healthy weekend meals for an entire school year for 85 students who attend 17 different schools.

“In Connecticut, one child in five is hungry. This generous gift from The Dunkin’ Donuts & Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation enables Connecticut Food Bank to help the children of low-income families gain access to nutritious food when school is not in session,” said Nancy L. Carrington, Connecticut Food Bank’s President & CEO. “We thank the Foundation for its support of our mission to provide nutritious food to people in need.”

According to Mitch Cohen, a Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins Franchisee and Co-Chair of The Dunkin’ Donuts & Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation, “Dunkin’ Brands and its franchisees are committed to serving the basic needs of our communities throughout the country, each and every day. One of the most pressing needs facing our communities is the fight against hunger, particularly childhood hunger. We are proud to make the largest donation in the Foundation’s history to Feeding America to support this cause, and we look forward to continuing to partner with Feeding America member food banks in 2014 and beyond.”

The DDBRCF recently announced a three-year, $1,000,000 grant, the largest donation in the Foundation’s history, to be distributed among Feeding America member food banks across the United States. The DDBRCF has partnered with Feeding America at the national level since 2007 and has donated more than $1,000,000 over the last seven years to support Feeding America and its local food banks. Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins franchisees have held fundraisers to support local food banks, led food drives in the communities they serve and organized volunteer days at their local food banks to help fill backpacks with nutritious meals for children.

Local Dunkin’ Donuts employees are avid supporters of Connecticut Food Bank and earlier this year hosted the fourth annual Dunkin’ Donuts “BackPack Pack-a-Thon” event at the Mohegan Sun Arena. In the weeks and days leading up to the event, teams practice and strategize on how to pack the most bags and win the coveted “Golden BackPack” award from Connecticut Food Bank. The competition-style, Dunkin’ volunteer Kids BackPack event was attended by 500 Dunkin’ Brands employees. In less than one hour, six teams of employee volunteers filled 8,700 bags for The Kids’ BackPack program.

To commemorate this grant, Connecticut Dunkin’ Donuts franchisees and crew recently presented Connecticut Food Bank with the $20,000 check. This presentation followed a morning of volunteer service as part of the DDBRCF National Week of Service, during which 40 volunteers sorted 28,266 pounds of fresh produce in just 3 hours! The Foundation’s first annual National Week of Service runs October 13 through 17, and over 1,800 Dunkin’ Donuts franchisees, employees, family, and friends will donate their time to local Feeding American food banks, totaling over 60 events across the country.