OMAHA, Neb., April 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- ConAgra Foods (NYSE: CAG) employees across the United States launched the first-ever Day of Service as part of the company's Child Hunger Ends Here® campaign. ConAgra Foods employees organized more than 125 volunteer events at their local Feeding America® food banks and pantries and gave 3,000 hours of service to community-based programs that help children and families overcome hunger.

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Today, 17.2 million children – that's one in four – are struggling with hunger in communities across the nation. With plants and offices in states from California and Washington to Pennsylvania and Florida, ConAgra Foods employees helped stock food pantries and distribute food to families in need, donated thousands of pounds of food, prepared community gardens for spring planting season and more – all in an effort to bring the goal of ending child hunger in the United States another step closer to becoming a reality.

"We've been committed to ending child hunger in America for nearly 20 years and – thanks to the support of ConAgra Foods employees who live and work in communities across the country  - I'm confident we can help make sure that Child Hunger Ends Here!" said Kori Reed, vice president of Cause and the ConAgra Foods Foundation.

Some highlights from ConAgra Foods' Child Hunger Ends Here Day of Service include:

• Employees in Council Bluffs, Iowa, collected and donated approximately 10,000 pounds of food to the Food Bank for the Heartland, one of the largest donations made to the food bank by any single group.
• Humboldt, Tenn., employees donated nearly 2,500 pounds of food to the Helping Hands of Humboldt food pantry, which is affiliated with the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee.
• Employees from the Omaha, Neb., area packed more than 14,000 backpacks to be distributed to middle-school and high-school students in rural Iowa and Nebraska during the summer months. The bags were filled with food donated by ConAgra Foods.
• In Pasco, Wash., employees distributed free produce and perishable food items to low-income families and people in need at a mobile food bank in partnership with Second Harvest Inland Northwest.
• Employees in Naperville, Ill., packed more than 7,000 backpacks for children who rely on subsidized school lunch programs at two separate events for the Greater Chicago Food Depository and the Northern Illinois Food Bank.

"As a ConAgra Foods employee, I'm proud to do my part to help end child hunger, and I'm humbled by the generosity of my co-workers," said Samantha Lee, manufacturing development associate at ConAgra Foods' Council Bluffs, Iowa, plant. "Next year, I'm certain our Child Hunger Ends Here Employee Day of Service will be a much-anticipated event among employees and the communities where we live and work."

"From the very beginning, our entire team was supportive of the Child Hunger Ends Here Employee Day of Service. But I never expected we would gather more than a ton of food to donate to the Helping Hands of Humboldt food pantry. To be able to provide that kind of help to our community is an amazing accomplishment," said Vickie Granade, Human Resources manager for ConAgra Foods' Humboldt, Tenn., plant.

In 2010, ConAgra Foods and Feeding America launched the Child Hunger Ends Here campaign to increase awareness of the problem of child hunger in America and provide consumers with simple ways to help. The 2011 campaign kicked off in March, bringing together some of ConAgra Foods' best-known brands in the largest cause-marketing program in the company's history. Highlighted by a multi-brand packaging promotion, the broadcast of an NBC Special Report, hosted by Al Roker and Natalie Morales, and online and social media extensions, the comprehensive campaign expands on ConAgra Foods' long-standing commitment to ending child hunger in America. Since 1993, ConAgra Foods and the ConAgra Foods Foundation have donated $35 million and more than 250 million pounds of food to Feeding America.

For more information about Child Hunger Ends Here, visit www.childhungerendshere.com.

About ConAgra Foods:

ConAgra Foods, Inc., (NYSE: CAG) is one of North America's leading food companies, with brands in 97 percent of America's households. Consumers find Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Egg Beaters, Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, Hunt's, Marie Callender's, Orville Redenbacher's, PAM, Peter Pan, Reddi-wip and many more ConAgra Foods brands in grocery, convenience, mass merchandise and club stores. ConAgra Foods also has a strong business-to-business presence, supplying frozen potato and sweet potato products as well as other vegetable, spice and grain products to a variety of well-known restaurants, foodservice operators and commercial customers. For more information, please visit us at www.conagrafoods.com.

SOURCE ConAgra Foods