John van Hengel

John Arnold van Hengel (February 21, 1923 – October 5, 2005) was a grassroots activist and entrepreneur credited as being the "Father of Food Banking". In 1967, van Hengel founded St. Mary's Food Bank, the world's first food bank in Phoenix, Arizona. He would later go on to create Feeding America, helping to spread the food banking concept across the United States, and eventually the rest of the world.

Early years John van Hengel was born in Waupun, Wisconsin. Of Dutch ancestry, he was the son of a nurse and the town pharmacist. van Hengel moved on to study broadcasting at UCLA.

His odd jobs included driving a beer truck in Beverly Hills,

Start of the Food Bank journey John took a vow of poverty upon starting his life in Phoenix. A devout Roman Catholic, John began working at Immaculate Heart Church where he drove the bus and coached sports. He also began volunteering at the very busy St. Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen.

John bought an old milk delivery truck for $150 and used it to gather gleaned citrus fruit and other foods to bring to the soup kitchen. Every evening John would deliver any surplus to the homeless missions in downtown Phoenix.

John expanded his food resources upon a discovery behind local grocery stores. A destitute mother of 10 well-fed children pointed out “a bank of food” from which she fed her family. food that was frozen but still edible, loose vegetables, stale bread. Inside stores John found less perishable throwaways such as dented cans and leaky bags of rice and sugar. In accordance with his vow of poverty, John took no salary during his first decade at St. Mary's. He wore secondhand clothes, got his food at the food bank and lived in a donated room above a garage. Businesses were able to cut the costs of disposing unusable but edible food as well as taking tax breaks by helping multiple charities. 1972 Phoenix Advertising Club Man of The Year 1992 Norman Vincent Peale's America Award for Ingenuity presented at the Kennedy Center 2003 108th Congress Congressional Record Award for humanitarian work 2003 National Association of Home Care and Hospice – Mother Teresa Lifetime Achievement Award