Washington Trust Hosts 23rd Annual Peanut Butter Drive

Courtesy of Washington Trust

The Washington Trust Company may already be well into its twenty-third annual Peanut Butter Drive, but there’s still time to make a difference. Every year, this drive encourages customers and community members to donate jars of peanut butter at any one of the bank’s twenty-five locations across Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Alternatively, those interested can also make an online contribution to benefit local food bank partners such as the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, Connecticut Foodshare and the Greater Boston Food Bank.

As outlined in this article on Washington Trust’s website, this year’s drive is being hosted at a critical time for local hunger relief agencies as they deal with the recent reduction in funding of the federal SNAP benefits program. Starting March 1, state SNAP benefits no longer included additional emergency funding that had originally been allocated to help families during the pandemic. As a result, estimates show that Rhode Island households receiving SNAP benefits will see an average drop of $153 per monthly allocation. This drastic reduction makes it even more difficulty for struggling families to make ends meet in a time when food prices are on the rise and show no sign of slowing down. According to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank (which serves more than 63,000 individuals through their network of 140 member agencies each month), one in three Rhode Island households are considered food insecure, or in other words they cannot meet basic food needs. As such, 41 percent of households with children are at risk of hunger. Donating to this cause can help ensure that families have access to healthy, protein-rich, nutritious options like peanut butter in the coming months. Since launching the drive in 2001, Washington Trust has collected more than 156 tons of peanut butter—enough to make more than 4.9 million peanut butter sandwiches.

“Washington Trust’s annual Peanut Butter Drive is a longstanding tradition that brings our employees, customers and our communities together in support of a united mission to help local families struggling with food insecurity,” says Edward O. “Ned” Handy III, Washington Trust Chairman and CEO and President of the Board of Directors at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. “We are proud to be working with our hunger relief agency partners across three states to ensure this nutritious, family-friendly pantry is readily available to the individuals and families that they serve.”

Last month, Washington Trust employees raised more than $4,000 during an annual employee appreciation event, which the Washington Trust Charitable Foundation has pledged to match, dollar for dollar. The Peanut Butter Drive will run in all branch locations and online through Friday, March 31. Until then, you can also spread the word by keeping up with Washington Trust on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and sharing the opportunity to get involved with friends and family. To learn more about the drive, visit peanutbutterbank.com.

Courtesy of Washington Trust