McDonald’s Remains at the Ready to Fight Hunger During Covid-19 Pandemic, Now Donating $6.7 Million in Food to Communities Nationwide

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May 01, 2020

Knowing many of our neighbors are increasingly worried about feeding their families during this time, McDonald’s three-legged stool – Owner/Operators, suppliers and the company – continue to work together to support the local communities McDonald’s restaurants serve. To date, our system has donated $6.7 million in food, equating to more than 6 million total pounds, to over 130 organizations that feed U.S. families. We’re humbled to have incredible partners in the #McFamily, who work together to make an impact.  

Our world class supply chain is working in lockstep with Owner/Operators to get food into the hands of those who need it most.

With school closures, job disruptions and health concerns affecting many, millions of Americans are turning to food banks and other local organizations for much-needed support. One of our supply chain partners, EARP Distribution, jumped at the opportunity to help deliver products to food banks across the country. EARP partnered with local Owner/Operators across the Great Plains region to make donations including 10,000 food products to two major food banks and 2,000 pounds of beef to the United Methodist Open Door and the Topeka Rescue Mission in Kansas. Overall, their contributions included 42,687 pounds of various food products reaching 20 organizations – talk about making an impact!

“This is a really important donation for us,” said Kelly Ptacek, vice president of external affairs at Food Bank for the Heartland. She explained the donation of protein was particularly important as it is always a high-demand product.

Beef patties delivered to Second Harvest Food Bank of San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties

Another one of our valued distribution partners worked with California Owner/Operators including Maryann Paciullo to deliver more than 20,000 pounds of beef patties to the Second Harvest Food Bank of San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties. Our friends at Second Harvest said their center is seeing up to 80 people a day seeking help, and this donation goes a long way towards serving those in need.

Maryann Paciullo and David Horner

In addition to partnering with our distribution centers, Maryann connected with fellow Owner/Operator David Horner to support another community contribution: donating 10,000 pounds of beef to Feeding America Riverside and San Bernardino Food Bank. This effort resulted in providing enough food to feed more than 2,500 households throughout the state of California!

Our three-legged stool partnership is dedicated to using resources to ensure our neighbors have sense of certainty during an uncertain time.

  • Opelika’s Protein Products Team at Golden State Foods, a supplier for some of our essential ingredients such as 100% pure beef patties, were also looking to provide some comfort to their community. They donated more than 126,000 pounds of beef to the Food Bank of East Alabama – the equivalent of nearly 500,000 Quarter Pounder burger patties!
  • National Beef, one of our suppliers that provides meat for delicious McDonald’s favorites  – such as Big Mac® sandwiches , Quarter Pounder® burgers and Cheeseburgers – worked with the Ohio Association of Food Banks to see how they could best distribute excess products. So far, over 3,500 cases of beef to multiple community food programs have been donated.
  • Longtime supplier Peterson Farms donated more than 356,000 cups of applesauce to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Now, that’s awesome sauce.

Our system of suppliers working together

As a full System, we remain at the ready to work together to use our scale for good as we continue our mission to assist the nearly 14,000 communities we serve.

As we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, acts of kindness remind us we’re all in this together. To demonstrate our gratitude and give our frontline heroes something small to smile about, McDonald’s is offering Thank You Meals to healthcare workers, police officers, firefighters and paramedics through Tuesday, May 5.  

About McDonald’s Corp. U.S. COVID-19 Relief Efforts

McDonald’s approach to challenging situations is guided by our belief that we are all in this together, and our system has come together in extraordinary ways to help each other, our customers and the communities we serve. We’re committed to caring for local heroes who are caring for our country, which is why we’re honored to have served nearly 4 million free meals to first responders, a value of more than $20 million, in the first six days of our Thank You Meal program. We continue to lead by example as an organization during these unprecedented times, which is why we’ve also donated over $6.7 million in food to support local communities, made commitments to support truck drivers across the country, donated 1 million N95 masks to Chicago and the state of Illinois and donated $1 million to the Illinois COVID-19 Response Fund to ensure non-profits in our home state have the supplies they need during this time. McDonald’s has always been a home base for our communities, and we’re proud to provide calm and comfort to them throughout this crisis. We are here to serve.

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