Food Distribution

WASHINGTON -- President Bush agreed yesterday to dispatch a team of U.S. experts to the Soviet Union, where it will study food distribution problems, in part to determine the potential impact of $1.5 million in U.S. grain credits that the Soviets have requested.Mr. Bush made the decision in consultation with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whom he telephoned about 9 a.m. yesterday fromCamp David. The two leaders talked for about 45 minutes on arms control and economics, said White House spokesman William Harlow.

There will be a free food and clothing distribution event Saturday, May 19 at First United Methodist Church of Laurel, 424 Main St. The clothing distribution, sponsored by Grace Community Church, will be available from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The food distribution is sponsored by Priority Partners and the Capital Area Food Bank, and will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Pick up free food and learn about getting no- and low-cost health care benefits for...

As construction workers, Bob and John Wilcox know that steady work is hard to find in winter weather. But the two West Friendship residents haven't had jobs for the past few months and finally had to go on unemployment.The two brothers, each of whom has a wife and children, got some additional help yesterday at the Ellicott City National Guard Armory, the site of a federally funded emergency food distribution.The armory's cavernous gym became a makeshift grocery store as hundreds of county residents lined up to get potatoes, canned pork, butter, flour, cornmeal, beans and other foods.

The nation's food stamp program is an essential part of the American safety net. Why? Because people can't be productive - in school, at work or looking for work - if they are hungry and fearful about not having enough food to feed their families. The program serves 46 million people, almost as many people as Medicare. And that's despite the fact that more than one-third of those eligible for the benefit are not receiving it. If all those who qualified for food stamps enrolled in the program, it would include 20 percent to 25 percent of Americans.

Royal Ahold NV said yesterday that it has completed its $3.6 billion purchase of Columbia-based U.S. Foodservice, expanding the Dutch supermarket giant's formidable food-industry realm into the business of food distribution. U.S. Foodservice will keep its name and remain in Columbia, with little effect on its management or its 13,250-employee work force. It operates 40 distribution centers nationwide and employs roughly 800 people in Maryland. By closing the deal announced last month, under which Royal Ahold paid $26 per share for U.S. Foodservice's common stock, the $6.8 billion Maryland company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Ahold USA, the American arm of the Dutch company.

ROME -- The U.N. World Food Program said today a growing number of Rwandan children were going hungry in Zaire's refugee camps because food distribution was controlled by corrupt Rwandan leaders.The agency said the situation is especially bad in the Mugunga camp in Goma on Zaire's border with Rwanda, home to 200,000 refugees.The WFP blamed the rise in malnutrition on those who distribute the rations."The more vulnerable groups do not receive enough food because of corruption and food leakages at the distribution level," the WFP said.

There will be a free food and clothing distribution event Saturday, May 19 at First United Methodist Church of Laurel, 424 Main St. The clothing distribution, sponsored by Grace Community Church, will be available from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The food distribution is sponsored by Priority Partners and the Capital Area Food Bank, and will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Pick up free food and learn about getting no- and low-cost health care benefits for...

Hiring will begin soon for distribution centerHAGERSTOWN -- A food distribution center opening this summer near Williamsport will begin hiring in about two months, even though winter has delayed construction four to six weeks.DOT Foods Inc. of Mount Sterling, Ill., plans to employ about 70 workers, including truck drivers, warehouse workers and clerical workers, said company president Pat Tracy. Eventually, the center could employ 200 workers.DOT Foods is closing its plant in New Castle, Del., and fewer than 15 workers at the Delaware facility are relocating to Hagerstown.

WESTMINSTER -- In two weeks, the people who run Carroll County's shelters for the homeless may be out of their offices with no place to go.Human Services Programs Inc. would have to stop admissions to the homeless shelters and be unable to continue emergency aid programs -- with the possible exception of monthly surplus food distribution -- if the staff is evicted.The county commissioners have no other office space to offer the private, non-profit agency that contracts with the county to operate aid programs.

The lean, low-fat hamburgers being introduced by a national fast-food chain will also be coming soon to a school cafeteria near you.Howard County schools are participating in a statewide test of hamburgers made from low-fat beef patties supplied by the U.S. Department ofAgriculture.The test comes in the same month that McDonald's is introducing 91 percent lean "McLean Burgers."The 3-ounce beef patties being tested in school cafeterias this month are 92 percent lean, said W. Kenneth Shifflett, chief of the food distribution section of the Maryland State Department of Education.

Loch Raven Technical Academy, in partnership with the Maryland Food Bank, will be distributing food at the LRTA Food Pantry inside the school, 8101 LaSalle Road, on Saturday, Nov. 19, 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. The program is a new outreach effort at the school. Families in need in the community are invited to come and receive food items. The food bank provides the food for the pantry only on designated dates. The next date after Nov. 19 will be in December. Loch Raven program designed to map a path for students Students in gifted and talented courses in Grades seven, eight and nine and their parents are invited to Loch Raven High School, 1212 Cowpens Avenue in Towson, on Nov. 2, at 6:45 p.m., for a presentation on the choices and challenges as they prepare for their high school and postsecondary education.

MASVINGO PROVINCE, Zimbabwe - They look like birds pecking, grain by grain, along the nation's roadsides. Tattered women and children bend to pick up the corn blown from passing trucks. The precious grains are about all there is to eat. Millions of people across Zimbabwe are on the brink of starvation, largely because of the failure of this year's harvest and the nation's collapsed economy, along with President Robert G. Mugabe's ban on humanitarian aid during the recent election campaign.

According to farmers and environmental activists, both the supply and the demand for locally sourced food have increased exponentially each year. The benefits of this movement are many, from the preservation of farmland and the slowing of sprawl to the reduced carbon load (grocery store produce travels an average of 1,500 miles to your table). Plus, let's face it: Fresh produce (and meat) tastes better. However, because of the complexity of food distribution networks at the grocery store level (even Whole Foods only makes local produce available at a farmer's market once a week in front of the store, not in it)

DOUKOUKOUNEY, Niger - When the women of this village heard that free food was on the way, they were overjoyed that for the first time in months, they would not have to worry about how to feed their children. "We have been hungry for more than a year," said Mariam Garba, 35, a mother of seven who was nursing a baby as she waited in line for the aid last week. "Many times I would sit down and think, `How I am going to feed my children?' It kept me awake at night." But what the women from Doukoukouney and neighboring villages received disappointed many of them.

A cheese giveaway is putting Vermont's finest dairy product on the tables of Carroll's needy residents. Volunteers at Carroll County Food Sunday filled grocery bags yesterday with three days' worth of food as usual. "Oatmeal or Cheerios; macaroni or beans," each patron was asked. Then they were offered the unheard-of: Monterey Jack, cheddar, Colby Jack and extra-sharp cheddar cheese. Each family received an 8-ounce block with their groceries. "They can have the flavor they like," said David Hagerty, chairman of Food Sunday, which operates distribution sites in Westminster, Eldersburg and Taneytown, and assists about 16,000 households a year.

Royal Ahold NV said yesterday that it has completed its $3.6 billion purchase of Columbia-based U.S. Foodservice, expanding the Dutch supermarket giant's formidable food-industry realm into the business of food distribution. U.S. Foodservice will keep its name and remain in Columbia, with little effect on its management or its 13,250-employee work force. It operates 40 distribution centers nationwide and employs roughly 800 people in Maryland. By closing the deal announced last month, under which Royal Ahold paid $26 per share for U.S. Foodservice's common stock, the $6.8 billion Maryland company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Ahold USA, the American arm of the Dutch company.

ON NOV. 6, Westminster resident Richard Duvall will attend a ceremony at St. John's College in Annapolis to see whether he is Maryland's Most Beautiful Person.Duvall was named Carroll County's Most Beautiful Person in a ceremony Sept. 11 at Bear Branch Nature Center. The contest honors people for community service efforts. He was one of 31 nominees submitted by Carroll residents and organizations."I was surprised when I got the nomination in the mail," Duvall said. "No one had told me about it, and I couldn't believe they'd nominated me."

According to farmers and environmental activists, both the supply and the demand for locally sourced food have increased exponentially each year. The benefits of this movement are many, from the preservation of farmland and the slowing of sprawl to the reduced carbon load (grocery store produce travels an average of 1,500 miles to your table). Plus, let's face it: Fresh produce (and meat) tastes better. However, because of the complexity of food distribution networks at the grocery store level (even Whole Foods only makes local produce available at a farmer's market once a week in front of the store, not in it)

U.S. Foodservice, the Columbia-based food distributor whose stock price has fallen on concerns about growth, plans to close its San Francisco distribution operation and cut jobs elsewhere as it tries to reinvigorate the price of its shares. The decisions to close the distribution center and cut jobs were both listed in a Feb. 10 filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington and come less than a month after the company's second-quarter earnings disappointed analysts.

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Philadelphia Inquirer, which was published Friday.The United States has one of the safest food supplies in the world, but that's of little comfort to the 76 million Americans who get food poisoning every year.Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta released the most comprehensive survey of food-borne illnesses ever done. It reported that 5,000 people die and 325,000 are hospitalized yearly from pathogens transmitted through food.