Wichita, KS - Wesley Healthcare, as a part of HCA Healthcare, one of the nation's leading healthcare providers, today announced the results of its annual Healthy Food for Healthier Tomorrows Food and Nutrition Drive. This fall, HCA Healthcare affiliate hospitals along with The HCA Healthcare Foundation provided 878,000 nutritious meals to food banks across the country by donating food or making financial contributions to help purchase perishable items such as milk, fruit and vegetables. This eclipses the 370,000 meals provided by the organization in 2021 by more than half a million.
As one of the participants in HCA Healthcare's Healthy Food for Healthier Tomorrows Food and Nutrition Drive, Wesley Healthcare and its colleagues donated 440 pounds of food to the Kansas Food Bank.
“Our Wesley colleagues were extraordinarily proud to support our communities in such a meaningful, tangible way,” stated Scott Evans, Manager of Community Engagement. “Our colleagues care deeply about the communities in which we all live and work, and our ability to collect thousands of pounds of food is a true testament to our desire to give back.”
Food insecurity, the lack of consistent access to enough food to have an active, healthy lifestyle, affects 1 in 10 American families. The United States Department of Agriculture reports that 13.5 million U.S. households were food insecure at some point in 2021.
The 878,000 nutritious meals provided to families by HCA Healthcare included:
- 80,722 meals donated by colleagues
- 196,313 meals from colleague charitable donations
- 143,333 meals from division gifts
- 458,000 meals from $140,000 in grants provided by the HCA Healthcare Foundation to the winning facilities and divisions of a creative food sculpture contest