Officials hope to restart program for feeding the poor

Boomtown and the Food Bank, with help from the Washoe County School Nutrition Center, launched the pilot program last year. From September through early January, Boomtown donated its excess food from casino buffets and banquets.

Food was transported by the school nutrition services center and served to undernourished children in the Truckee Meadows Boys and Girls Club nutrition program, which feeds anywhere from 200 to 700 children each day.

Though the donation program ended during the slow winter tourism season, officials hope to have it up and running again within a few months.

And they hope other northern Nevada casinos and restaurants will join the effort.

"It's sort of like ending waste at the Pentagon," said Cherie Jamason, Food Bank president.

Patrick Petrini, Boomtown's food and beverage director who initiated the program, said the hotel-casino donated a variety of food items during the few months the program operated.

"Chicken, mashed potatoes, soup, stew - since the buffet changes so much, it could be a bit of everything," he said.

He and Jamason had planned to get other casinos involved when El Nino exacerbated the typical winter business slump early this year. As a result, hotels and casinos were preparing less food, and had fewer leftovers.

In addition, the school district's nutrition services center, which had transported the food for free, was taken over by Marriott. Marriott is willing to continue the service if grant money is found to help fund it, officials said.

George Hulett, Marriott's director of nutrition services for the school district, noted that Marriott is big supporter of Second Harvest, a national network of food banks.

"We'd like to be a part of it, and we would like to work out an arrangement to restart the program," he said.

Jamason said she'd like to get the program relaunched by summer.

"I'm going to open my mouth and say we can get this up and running in two months," she said.

Other casino executives also were optimistic about the idea.

"If all the casinos banded together, we should be able to put a big bite in the hunger programs in this area," said Garrett McKeeman, food and beverage director at the Peppermill Hotel-Casino.

A survey conducted last year by the Northern Nevada Food Bank and the school nutrition center estimated that nearly 3,500 area children have a high probability of going without one or more meals each day.

Another study released in March found that northern Nevada has higher percentages of hungry children and seniors than the national average.

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