Chancellor Marye Anne
Fox Named as Co-Chair of
San Diego Food Bank's Holiday Food Drive

November 2, 2010

By Kim Wenrick

UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne Fox celebrates the university's participation in the "Colleges Rock Hunger" food drive with members of the Volunteer50: Chancellor's Call to Service group. Pictured, left to right, are Brian Gregory, Mayor Jerry Sanders, Ryan Crawford, Kim Newin, Chancellor Fox, Pepper Lane, Juanita Lahaye, Andrew Chan, Yuki Marsden and Vanessa Pool.

University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) Chancellor Marye Anne Fox will chair with San Diego State University (SDSU) President Steven Weber the San Diego Food Bank 2010 Holiday Food Drive, it was announced November 1 at a press conference at the Hard Rock Hotel in downtown San Diego. To kick off the drive, California State University at San Marcos, SDSU, UC San Diego and University of San Diego participated in “Colleges Rock Hunger,” sponsored by the Hard Rock Hotel. More than 13 tons of food were collected during the two-week drive.

“The San Diego Food Bank is one of our key partners in UC San Diego’s Volunteer50 campaign and I am told that our help could not have come at a better time,” said Chancellor Fox. “With the exponential rise in demand, our university’s faculty, staff, students and alumni will be working at the Food Bank, helping to support its functions to meet the demand from families affected by the down economy.” UC San Diego’s participation in “Colleges Rock Hunger” was spearheaded by Mark Cunningham, executive director of Housing and Dining Services, and Krista Mays, sustainability manager.

The Food Bank currently provides food to 342,000 people a month, up from about 200,000 people a month in 2008. The current number of people in San Diego County living at or below the poverty line, however, is closer to 483,000, according to Food Bank statistics. Children make up 70 percent of this number. This year the Food Bank expects to distribute over 16 million pounds of food. It distributed 15.3 million pounds of food this past fiscal year, a 56 percent increase from the 9.1 million pounds two years earlier. According to the Center on Hunger and Poverty, today over five million Californians are hungry or live in fear of hunger.

“To get an idea of the scale of the problem, you only need to visit the Food Bank’s 72,000-square-foot warehouse and see the thousands of food packages being assembled every day for delivery to people in need,” continued Chancellor Fox. “The hunger and poverty within our community is largely unseen, but with education and commitment from all of our county universities, we can get to the root causes of hunger and work towards solutions,” she said. “Promoting community service among our student populations will be vital to expose the next generation of leaders to the need to effect positive change in our community.”

UC San Diego has a long-standing relationship with the Food Bank. For three years, a group of university volunteers has given service every month to the Food Bank and will continue this tradition through Volunteer50: Chancellor’s Call to Service, a key component of UC San Diego’s 50th Anniversary celebration. The campus community—including alumni, faculty, staff, students and university friends—is encouraged to volunteer for at least 50 hours during the 2010-2011 academic year. To become involved with the Food Bank, or another Volunteer50 program, please go to www.50th.ucsd.edu and click on the Volunteer50 link.

Media Contact:
Kim Wenrick, 858-534-4132, kwenrick@ucsd.edu