The holiday spirit continues to shine at Flint Hills Resources and M. Holland Co.
Flint Hills employees in Wichita, Kan., recently volunteered for the Kansas Food Bank, providing almost 1,300 nutritional backpack kits for the food bank's Food 4 Kids program.
The Kansas Food Bank opened in 1984, serving 16 agencies in one county. It now serves more than 500 hunger-relief partners in 85 counties, with over 11.5 million pounds of food distributed last year. The backpack program began in 2004 and is designed to fill in the weekend gap in existing feeding programs for children at the highest risk of chronic undernourishment.
The program provides emergency weekend food — distributed in zip-bags that can be slipped into children's school backpacks — to kids who exhibit physical and behavioral signs of not otherwise eating on the days they are away from school meal programs. In its first year, the program served 60 students. It now serves 7,100 children in 400 schools in 58 counties.
Wichita-based Flint Hills is a supplier of polypropylene and olefins. The firm is owned by Koch Industries.
In Northbrook, Ill., resin distribution leader M. Holland has partnered with the Greater Chicago Food Depository for its second annual food drive. The drive — part of Holland's Moving Forward Giving Back Corporate Giving Program — will collect non-perishable food items and money to help those that are less fortunate.
Last year's drive collected more than 700 pounds of food and $500 in donations. Goals for this year's drive are 1,500 pounds of food and $750 in donations. Holland supply chain specialist Paulette Ciofani is one of the employees organizing the effort.
“Everyone has a responsibility to give back,” she said in a blog post on the company's web site. “Regardless of the cause, a greater impact is made as a group and M. Holland has a wonderful group of people who are more than willing to help.”
The Greater Chicago Food Depository distributes food through a network of 650 pantries, soup kitchens and shelters. The Holland food drive runs through Dec. 18. Those wanting to contribute can do so at the M. Holland My Food Drive page.
M. Holland ranks as one of North America's four largest resin distributors, handling resins and compounds from more than 20 suppliers. The firm has almost 4,000 customers and supplies more than 1 billion pounds of resin annually.
Is your company undertaking charitable projects during the holiday season? Share the details in the comment section of this blog.