COUNTYWIDE : Donations of Food Top Million Pounds

County restaurants and food companies have donated more than a million pounds of leftover food to the area’s needy residents during the first two years of a “rescued food” program, local food bank organizers said Thursday.

The effort, organized by the nonprofit Food Distribution Center in Orange, has matched 33 restaurants, food companies and vending machine operators with shelters and other charity groups since January, 1992.

The food donors range from small doughnut shops to the sprawling Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm theme parks, said the center’s resource coordinator, Debbie Nadon.

Nadon said the charities on the receiving end have needs as modest as those of a battered children’s shelter in Santa Ana that feeds six youngsters, and as large as a Costa Mesa shelter that feeds 200 people daily.

Food Distribution Center staff members visit restaurants interested in joining the program, size up their daily leftovers and then match them with a local charity.

“Rather than having this food go home with an employee, or worse, getting trashed, we match them up with somebody who can come by and get the food to people who really need it,” center spokeswoman Charlene Sydow said.

The program is far exceeding the center’s early goals. Food bank organizers initially hoped the program would rescue 100,000 pounds of food the first year, a projected total that was quadrupled the first 12 months.

Donors include Costco, the Hard Rock Cafe, Lucky Stores, Marriott Hotels, Monarch Vending, Pizza Hut, Subway Sandwich Shops and Upper Crust Catering.

While the program has been a success, Sydow said, the center estimates that more than 1.7 million pounds of prepared food is wasted each month in Orange County. That number is based on a conservative estimate of 10 pounds of discarded food per restaurant each day, Sydow said.

Beyond the food rescue program, the decade-old Food Distribution Center uses private donations to buy bulk quantities of food staples to distribute to more than 260 local charities.

Those efforts, coupled with help from a national food donation network, help the center feed an average of 180,000 people each month, almost 60% of them children or senior citizens.

For information about volunteering time, money or food, or participating in the food rescue program, call the food bank at (714) 771-1343, or write to the Food Distribution Center, 426-A W. Almond Ave., Orange, Calif. 92666.