GAITHERSBURG, MD. - July 10, 2008 - During the school year 16 million children rely on school breakfast and lunch programs for subsidized and reduced price meals. Each summer, 12 million of these children are at risk of hunger.

To help bridge this gap, the Sodexo Foundation, the independent charitable organization of Sodexo, Inc. has provided free lunches to children through its summer feeding program, Feeding Our Future, since 1997. The Sodexo Foundation provides grants to local Sodexo accounts to purchase food for the meals and local Sodexo employees prepare the meals each day. Employees work closely with local community organizations who distribute the meals to children at more than 110 sites across the country. This year the program will provide 350,000 meals, a 25 percent increase over the prior year's total.

"The sharp increases in food and gas prices over the last year have created unique challenges to families who are struggling to provide for their children," said Stephen J. Brady, president of the Sodexo Foundation. "As the leading food service provider to public schools throughout this country, we see first-hand the importance of good nutrition to support healthy childhood development and learning,"

Feeding Our Future provides summer lunches in 20 cities in the United States: Atlanta, Ga., Boston, Mass., Buffalo, N.Y., Chattanooga, Tenn., Chicago, Ill., Detroit, Mich., Denver, Colo., Ft. Worth, Texas, Honolulu, Hawaii, Houston, Texas, Los Angeles, Calif., Miami, Fla.,New York, N.Y., Oklahoma City, Okla., Phoenix, Ariz., Pittsburgh, Pa., San Jose, Calif. St. Louis, Mo., Terre Haute, Ind. and Washington, D.C.

Feeding Our Future is a program of the Sodexo Foundation, an independent charitable organization supporting hunger-related initiatives that focus on eliminating the root causes of hunger in the U.S. Sodexo pays all administrative costs of the Foundation to ensure that all money raised is directed to those in need.

For more details, please visit www.helpstophunger.org.

Sodexo, Inc.
Sodexo, Inc. (www.sodexoUSA.com) is a leading integrated food and facilities management services company in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with $7.3 billion (USD) in annual revenue and 120,000 employees. Sodexo, Inc. serves more than ten million customers daily in corporations, health care, long term care and retirement centers, schools, college campuses, government and remote sites. Sodexo, Inc., headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., is a member of Sodexo Group, and funds the Sodexo Foundation (www.helpstophunger.org), an independent charitable organization that, since its founding in 1999, has made more than $9.2 million in grants to fight hunger in America.

Sodexo

Sodexo

Sodexo, Inc. (www.sodexoUSA.com ) is a leading integrated facilities management services company in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, with $7.7 billion (USD) in annual revenue and 120,000 employees. Sodexo serves more than ten million customers daily in corporations, health care, long term care and retirement centers, schools, college campuses, government, and remote sites. Sodexo, Inc., headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., is a member of Sodexo Group, and funds all administrative costs for the Sodexo Foundation (www.sodexofoundation.org ), an independent charitable organization that, since its founding in 1999, has made more than $11 million in grants to fight hunger in America.

More from Sodexo