Santa Clara University

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 8, 2009 --  How much has the ongoing recession put children in Santa Clara County at greater risk of going hungry?  What will it take to achieve President Obama’s goal of eliminating domestic hunger by 2015?

Come find answers to these and other questions at the second annual Santa Clara County Hunger Issues Forum, where this year’s theme is “The Economic Toll of Childhood Hunger.” At the event, Santa Clara University’s acting business school dean S. Andrew Starbird will update the Hunger Index, revealing how the “food gap” between the number of meals required by Santa Clara County families and the number of meals they can buy or access through assistance programs has been worsening.

The forum is taking place Thursday September 10, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in Room 106 of Lucas Hall at Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA, 95053.

Also at the forum, Boston University School of Medicine’s Dr. John Cook will deliver the keynote address and explain findings from his recent report, Child Food Insecurity: The Economic Impact on Our Nation. And Santa Clara County pediatrician Dr. Daniel Delgado will share what is happening locally to improve children’s lifestyles.

“With unemployment stubbornly high and demand for programs like food stamps on the rise, thousands of families across the Bay Area are having to forgo millions of meals,’’ said S. Andrew Starbird, acting dean of Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. “Our data show that the food gap has clearly gotten worse.’’

The event is organized by Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties and is sponsored by Santa Clara University’s Food & Agribusiness Institute and SCU’s Leavey School of Business.

About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its 8,758 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, plus masters and law degrees, and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. masters universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.

About Second Harvest Food Bank
Founded in 1974, Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties is the single largest nonprofit provider of food to low-income households in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, and the seventh largest food bank in the country. Through a network of 316 nonprofit agencies at 834 distribution sites, Second Harvest also operates community nutrition programs and a multilingual toll-free hotline where callers can learn how to access the food programs in their neighborhoods.  In addition to providing food to an average of 207,000 individuals each month, Second Harvest also works with lawmakers to advocate for policy changes and strive to eliminate hunger and its root causes. For more information see www.secondharvestfood.org.

Media Contacts:
Santa Clara University
Deepa Arora, Director
Media Relations
(408) 554-5125

Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties
Lynn Crocker, Director
Marketing and Communications
(408) 694-0044