Nate Clark, President of the foundation, says the food bank opened in the 1980s when the farm crisis hit the Quad Cities hard. That's when John Deere employees decided they needed to do more to help people who were going hungry. They provided the seed money for renting a warehouse and hiring two people to manage the organization which eventually became River Bend.
Also Thursday, a group of John Deere Cylinder Works employees helped River Bend Foodbank distribute groceries from a mobile food pantry. It was held in the parking lot of the TaxSlayer Center, right next door to the Cylinder Works on River Drive in Moline.
Last year, River Bend Foodbank distributed a record 23 million meals. More information about the 300 pantries the foodbank serves in Illinois and Iowa, plus details about other programs and donations, may be found at RiverBendFoodbank.org.
The foundation and foodbank also revealed a new video about River Bend's mission.
