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April 4, 2002

Annual food drive set for April 10-30

Pitt's Partnership for Food Drive 2002 will be held April 10-30 to benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Contributors can participate by bringing nonperishable food and household items to designated campus collection sites.

The most-needed food items are baby formula and food, stews, chunky soups, peanut butter, packaged meals, tuna, meats and cereals. Household items such as paper products, soaps and cleaners also are needed. Bulk quantities of items also are accepted.

The collected items are distributed through a network of local food pantries. The project has no overhead costs, since all publicity, printing, packing boxes, bags and staff time are donated. The $4 million worth of food collected last year provided one month's allotment of food for those in need.

In addition to Pitt, more than 400 other Pittsburgh companies, universities, law and accounting firms, labor unions and governmental agencies join forces to assist in making the Pittsburgh effort the largest in the nation. Pitt's Volunteer Pool and Student Volunteer Outreach sponsor the campus-wide effort in collaboration with the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

"Unique among Pittsburgh area employers, the Pitt Partnership for Food is more than just another food drive," said Steve Zupcic, assistant director of Pitt's Office of Community and Governmental Relations and Partnership for Food coordinator. "The partnership includes student, staff and faculty voluntary service at the Food Bank's main warehouse and at the Healthy Harvest Farm in McDonald.

"It also includes the development of hunger education projects, in cooperation with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, at local schools, churches and community centers. Here at Pitt we have gone beyond the concept of a food drive to take a holistic approach to regional hunger," Zupcic added.

Pitt food collection sites are at the William Pitt Union's Fifth Avenue lobby information desk, the circulation desks of Hillman Library and all other Pitt libraries, the Bouquet Street entrance of Posvar Hall, the Law School lobby and Law Library, the Scaife Hall second- and fourth-floor lobbies, the Biomedical Science Tower's entrance lobby, the Cathedral of Learning's ground-floor elevator lobby, the Graduate School of Public Health's first-floor lobby, Craig Hall's lobby, the Biotech Center lobby, the School of Information Science's fifth-floor lobby, the Towers lobby and the Alumni Hall lobby.

For more information or to request a food pickup for bulk items, call 412/624-7709.


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