Get the Facts

About the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas

Number of years CAFB has been in operation: 29 years
Pounds of food and grocery products provided in 2009: 23,000,000
Total amount paid by the food recipients: $0
Number of meals provided in 2009: 18,400,000
Number of CAFB Partner Agencies that received food in 2008: 355
Territory served: 21 counties; 19,000 square miles
Size of Distribution Center: 54,484 square feet
Size of freezers and coolers: 160,000 cubic feet
Number of Regional Delivery sites: 21
Largest food donor: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Number of paid CAFB staff: 61
Average number of volunteer hours put in each month: 5,400
Age range of Food Bank volunteers: 8 years to 90 years
Largest local retail donor: H-E-B Grocery Company
Fastest growing product area: Fresh produce
Food items most requested by agencies' clients: canned tuna, cereal, dried pasta and pasta sauce
Most requested non-food item: Diapers

Note: These statistics are current as of October 2009

Hunger in Central Texas

1 in 3 of our clients is a child.
95 % of our partner agencies say they could no longer serve their clients if the Food Bank shut down tomorrow.
More than 1/3 of our older clients go extended periods without food.
1 in 5 families we serve experience the physical pain of hunger.
Almost half of our clients have at least one working adult at home.
Almost half of the families we serve have to choose between buying food and paying utilities
82% of our clients are not homeless.

(Source: Hunger in America 2010: Central Texas Report)

Hunger in Texas

One in six Texans is at risk for hunger.
(Source: USDA Report - Household Food Security in the United States, 2008)

Texas has the second highest rate of food insecurity in the Nation at 16.3%.
(Source: USDA Report - Household Food Security in the United States, 2008)

Texas has the highest estimated average rate of food insecurity among children under age 18. 22.1% (or one in five) of Texas children are estimated to be food insecure.
(Source: Feeding America Report - Child Food Insecurity in the United States: 2005 - 2007)

Texas ranks fifth highest in food insecurity among children under age five. 23.3% (or one in four) of Texas children under age five are estimated to be food insecure.
(Source: Feeding America Report - Child Food Insecurity in the United States: 2005 - 2007)

Poverty Information

Food insecurity is strongly associated with household income and poverty. It is, by definition, a condition that arises from a lack of enough income and other resources for food.

Glossary of Terms

Food Insecurity: Food insecurity is limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways. (Life Sciences Research Office, S.A. Andersen, ed., “Core Indicators of Nutritional State for Difficult to Sample Populations,” The Journal of Nutrition 120:1557S-1600S, 1990.) Food insecure individuals are at risk of hunger.

The USDA monitors the food security of the Nation's households through an annual, nationally representative household survey. Households are classified as food secure, food insecure without hunger, or food insecure with hunger based on the number of food-insecure conditions reported. For more information about the USDA food security survey, visit the Economic Research Service website.

Hunger: Hunger is the uneasy or painful sensation caused by lack of food.

Working Poor: Working poor is defined as living at or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines ($36,488 for a family of four). (Source: Basic Needs Coalition, 2005). Other definitions include people who worked, but who nevertheless, fell under the official definition of poverty and people who were in poverty and had at least one working family member.