Spirit of Giving Sparked in Ventura County Schools

    VENTURA COUNTY, CA, October 30, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- To spark the spirit of giving in Ventura County's students, Dole Packaged Foods is partnering with FOOD Share of Ventura County for a fourth quarter food drive from November 28th to December 14th.

Over 300 Ventura County schools have been invited to participate in the Spirit of Giving food drive, which commemorates and captures the essence of Dole's "Spirit of Hawaii" float for the 128th annual Tournament of Roses Parade. Brightly colored, FOOD Share labeled collection bins will be placed at each participating school encouraging students and their families to donate the non-perishable goods FOOD Share needs most this time of year. These items include canned proteins, canned or dried fruit, vegetables, soup, and proteins, peanut butter, and pasta and rice.

"Dole Packaged Foods is proud to partner with FOOD Share and the Captain Planet Foundation for the Spirit of Giving 2016 Ventura County Food Drive," said Brad Bartlett, President of Dole Packaged Foods. "As a provider of healthy food products that are affordable to all, we're uniquely positioned to fight hunger in Ventura County, and we share the commitment of both organizations to enhancing student knowledge of nutrition and the environment. We're looking forward to a successful food drive!"

The six elementary schools that collect the most food (in pounds) throughout the course of the Spirit of Giving food drive will each receive a Learning Garden from Dole Packaged Foods and the Captain Planet Foundation in partnership with FOOD Share. Dole Grow by Giving volunteers will assist with planting the gardens. The two winning high schools and junior high schools will each receive $1,000 in science funding from Dole, and all winning schools will be recognized on Dole's "Spirit of Hawaii" Rose Parade float.

"We are so grateful to Dole Packaged Foods and the Captain Planet Foundation for the opportunity to engage the students in our community through this powerful collaboration," said Bonnie Atmore, President & CEO of FOOD Share of Ventura County. "1 in 6 Ventura County residents is still food insecure, and while we've made a lot of progress, we still have a long way to go to raise the 200,000 pounds of food that is needed by the end of the year to restock our warehouse shelves. The Spirit of Giving food drive will help us get there. Together we are working to solve hunger."

About FOOD Share:
More than 35 years ago, eight citizens performed a good deed by distributing food to those who were in need underneath a Ventura bridge. The early philanthropic movement quickly formed into what is now Ventura County's regional food bank, FOOD Share, which has grown from serving a few hundred hungry people per month to 74,500 people. Today, staff and volunteers distribute more than 12 million pounds of food, or 10 million meals annually from its distribution site; more than 180 partner agencies, which include neighborhood and church food distributions and soup kitchens; as well as hunger assistance programs. FOOD Share's programs provide healthy nutrition and education to children, families and seniors, which include: KIDS' Farmers' Market, SENIOR Share, Nutrition Education, Community Market, and more. The regional food bank's Feed the Line, Shorten the Line efforts draw together community stakeholders and other non-profit and community service organizations through programs such as Our Voice and the FOOD Share and Friends Mobile Pantry to provide county-wide access to resources that facilitate self-sustainability. A 501(c)3 non-profit organization, FOOD Share is a member of the Feeding America network, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization.

In 2016, FOOD Share is rallying the community behind a viral initiative encouraging the public, local businesses, major corporations and community leaders and stakeholders to help combat hunger through an outreach campaign called Share16. The Share16 Challenge asks the community to share ways in which they support FOOD Share by documenting their experiences and efforts on social media with the #Share16 hashtag.

For more information about FOOD Share, visit http://www.foodshare.com. Find us on Facebook , Instagram, and Twitter.

About Dole Packaged Foods:

Dole Packaged Foods is a world leader in growing, sourcing, distributing and marketing fruit and healthy snacks. Dole sells a full-line of packaged ambient fruit, frozen fruit, dried fruit, and juices. The company focuses on four pillars of sustainability in all its operations: water management, carbon footprint, soil conservation and packaging. For more information please visit dolesunshine.com or doleintlcsr.com.

About Captain Planet Foundation:

Based on the critically-acclaimed animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers, CPF was co-founded in 1991 by media mogul Ted Turner and producer Barbara Pyle. Since then, the Captain Planet Foundation has played a critical role in helping to ensure that the next generation of business leaders and policy makers are environmentally literate citizens who leverage technology and information to manage and protect the air, land, and water upon which all life depends.

CPF is a grant-making foundation that has funded over 2,000 hands-on environmental education projects with schools and non-profits that serve children in all 50 U.S. states and in 23 countries internationally. More than 1.2 million children have directly participated in and benefited from these educational projects. In addition to its Small Grants Program, the Captain Planet Foundation also operates the following programs: Project Learning Garden, the Leadership Center, SAGES, Planeteer Clubs, and a number of other science education initiatives that exploit the intersections between technology, innovation, the environment and personal action. For more information: http://www.captainplanetfdn.org.

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