River Bend Food Bank

River Bend Foodbank was established in 1982. Because of the farm implement crisis, tens of thousands of high paying jobs were lost in the Quad City area, and the demand was extremely high for assistance from food pantries and other relief organizations. A group of concerned citizens hoping to find a way to meet the increased demand for food to stock the pantries invited Second Harvest, the national foodbank network to conduct a workshop detailing the foodbank concept. The decision was made to start a foodbank in the Quad Cities and become part of the Second Harvest network. John Deere contributed seed money to rent warehouse space and to hire an executive director and a warehouse manager. In the first year, 190,000 pounds of food was collected, stored and distributed to food pantries and other non profit agencies with feeding programs.