CAR Food/Funds Drive for Oregon Food Bank

Last week, the Commercial Association of Realtors (CAR) of Oregon/SW Washington sponsored its second annual brokerage house food and fund drive competition benefiting the Oregon Food Bank. Together, the brokerage houses donated the equivalent of 14,543 pounds of food! CAR members also volunteered at the Oregon Food Bank on Friday, sorting and packing enough food for 376 meals.

And the winner of the competition was (drumroll please . . . ): NAI Norris, Beggs & Simpson! The money and food we donated equaled 124 boxes of food. We also had an internal competition to encourage donations, and our property managers especially stepped up and gave generously.

Though the competition was fun, the real goal of this project is to give as much as possible to the Oregon Food Bank, which is the hub of a network of 935 hunger-relief agencies throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington.

The Oregon Food Bank is a busy organization in good times, but the recession has been especially tough on Oregonians. From 2008-2009, distribution of emergency food boxes increased more than 14 percent from the previous year, to a historic high of 897,000.

The number of people per month who ate meals from an emergency food box jumped from an average of 200,000 per month in 2007-08 to 240,000 per month in 2008-09.

Please consider supporting the food bank in your area!