BJ’s Wholesale Club donates $50K to Capital Area Food Bank

BJ’s Wholesale Club is doing its part to help the Capital Area Food Bank.

The retailer announced that it would be donating $50,000 to the Feeding America member food bank through its BJ’s Charitable Foundation.

“BJ’s is dedicated to nourishing our communities and helping families thrive by improving access to basic essentials including fresh, nutritious food,” Kirk Saville, executive director, BJ’s Charitable Foundation said. “We’re thrilled to donate $50,000 to the Capital Area Food Bank to support its school pantry program. This grant will help increase access and feed more families in food insecure communities.”

As part of its recent $1 million donation to Feeding America, the grant will support programs that expand direct access to food, including the School Pantry, mobile market and BackPack programs, the company said.

“We all know it’s incredibly hard to learn or thrive without enough nutritious food,” Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank, said. “The hard reality is that nearly 400,000 people throughout the Washington metro area struggle to get the food they need, and one-third of those are children. We’re so pleased that, with BJ’s generous support, we’ll be able to increase the amount of fresh, healthy food that we deliver to kids and families in need through our free school-based markets.”

The Capital Area Food Bank provides more than 30 million meals to people in communities across Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, while also providing long-term solutions to hunger by addressing the root causes and partnering with organizations that provide such services as job training and health care, the company said.