More than 900 community supporters showed up strong for Asian Counseling and Referral Service’s (ACRS’s) 23rd Annual Walk for Rice fundraiser at Seward Park in Seattle on Saturday, June 29th — including local community groups such as Blaine United Methodist Memorial Church, National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP)-Seattle and OCA-Greater Seattle. Along with the rising temperatures commencing Seattle’s weekend heat wave, walkers were thoroughly warmed up by lively performances from Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team and Seattle Kokon Taiko. The walk and pre-event ramp-up raised $167,000 total for the ACRS Food Bank in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District (CID), the only food bank in Washington state that regularly serves food catering to Asian and Pacific Islander (API) diets.
With the addition of a $51,096.22 match from CenturyLink and additional matching funds from donor employer matches, ACRS exceeded its Walk for Rice fundraising goal of $200,000 to fight API hunger.
By Monday, July 1st , the walk funds reached more than $218, 000, and donations can still be made to Walk for Rice throughout 2013. The ACRS food bank — one of the busiest food banks in King County — distributes more than 126,000 pounds of food every month feeding 5,000 individuals per month. The majority accessing the food bank and partaking in ACRS nutrition programs are from low-income API households, and most are also children younger than 18 or seniors older than 65.
For more Walk for Rice photos and updates, please visit the Walk for Rice Facebook page at www.facebook/walkforrice. To donate to Walk for Rice, please visit www.walkforrice.org.
ACRS will be commemorating its next milestone and drumming up more support for its services at their 40th Anniversary Benefit Gala Auction on Saturday, September 28th at the Westin Seattle. To register or learn more about ACRS’s 40-year anniversary gala, please visit www.acrs.org/gala/.