Hundreds of AAA Members Give to Spring Food Drive

knife and fork surrounded by hand and heart

A spring food drive at every AAA Northeast branch, March 20-April 3, brought in more than 4,000 items from employees and members. Each branch will donate its cache to a local charitable organization.

For the Garden City, N.Y., branch, that’s about 290 items it will bring to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Long Island, a community social-service agency. That number includes additional items brought in by a member a few days after the drive. It is also the highest collection total of any branch club-wide.

New York and New Jersey branches combined to collect the highest total by district – just over 1,400 items. The district encompassing metro Boston, northern Massachusetts and New Hampshire came in a close second with almost 1,360 items.

group of people hold packaged food — Employees at the Garden City Branch with some of the 290 items collected during Branch Operations’ club-wide spring food drive.

Food Insecurity Around
AAA Northeast

The AAA branch charitable team decided to hold a spring food drive in addition to its annual summer food drive because so many of our neighbors continue to be impacted by food insecurity resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some of the hardest hit areas in the country are within the AAA Northeast footprint, according to the Feeding America report “The Impact of the Coronavirus on Local Food Insecurity.” The report projects food insecurity rates by state, county and congressional district.

A Bronx, N.Y., congressional district is ranked with the highest per capita rate at 24.8% or 183,250 people.
New Jersey is expected to have the highest rate increase by state, up 36% from 2019, and by congressional district. The report projects an increase of 66% in the 11th Congressional District, which is within the AAA Northeast footprint.
The projected rates by population for all AAA Northeast states are: 13.7% in Connecticut, 13.2% in New York, 11.7% in New Jersey, 11.4% in Rhode Island, 9.9% in Massachusetts and 9.7% in New Hampshire.
42 million people living in the U.S. – or 12.9% – may experience food insecurity this year.

The branch summer food drive is scheduled for July 5-28.

For other AAA charitable events, visit AAA.com/AAACares. For more about how AAA helps in the community, click here.