According to the United States Department of Agriculture, nearly 42 million Americans are food insecure, including 13 million children and five million seniors, which means that one in eight Americans do not know how to source their next meal. As a global food company, Smithfield Foods understands the benefits of proper nutrition. We strongly believe it is our responsibility to help our neighbors in need. Nearly 10 years ago, Smithfield launched Helping Hungry Homes®, an initiative focused on alleviating hunger and helping Americans become more food secure. Helping Hungry Homes® provides nutritious, high-quality protein to food banks, school nutrition programs, disaster relief efforts, and community outreach programs.
Helping Hungry Homes® works to both alleviate hunger and raise awareness of this issue. Through this program, we deliver millions of pounds of nutritious protein, an often-limited resource, to about 50 communities across the country each year. At each donation stop, we host a media event to raise awareness of food insecurity in the local community, and encourage local employees and retailers to take an active role in the fight against hunger.
At Smithfield, it's our business to feed people. We value our responsibility as a global food company to address hunger and improve food security. We have a strong social purpose that governs all our operations: Smithfield Foods is committed to improving food security and ending hunger by donating high-quality, nutritious food. We created our Helping Hungry Homes® initiative to alleviate hunger across the country. Each year, our nationwide Helping Hungry Homes® food-donation tour contributes millions of pounds of protein to communities across the country. There are many ways Helping Hungry Homes® and this type of food donation stands apart.
Throughout the cross-country journey, Smithfield partners with local retailers, civic leaders and other stakeholders who share our passion in the fight to end hunger. With help from these community leaders, we are able to garner additional support and generate greater awareness of hunger at the local level. At many donation stops, our employees also get involved by attending the event, hosting nonperishable food drives and volunteering at local food pantries. By engaging internal and external stakeholders, we have secured several million traditional and social media impressions while activating community members to take a stand against hunger and food insecurity.
The way we support hunger-relief programs in the communities we visit is also unique. While many companies provide financial assistance to hunger and poverty organizations, we take the extra step to donate fresh protein that can be directly distributed to those in need. By giving protein directly, we are able to maximize impact on the communities we serve while minimizing impact on food bank operations or the need for additional resources.
Helping Hungry Homes® was launched by the Smithfield brand in 2008. Since then, the program has grown significantly. In 2017, Smithfield Foods expanded Helping Hungry Homes® to its entire family of brands—including Smithfield®, Eckrich® and Nathan's Famous®—and its more than 40,000 domestic employees located at more than 40 locations. We also recently launched a new, interactive website in 2017 to further engage employees, retailers and others in our Helping Hungry Homes® initiative. The website, helpinghungryhomes.com, provides information about where the tour has recently visited, where it's going next and the impact we've made on our communities across the nation.
Since its launch in 2008, Helping Hungry Homes® has successfully helped local communities fight hunger through protein donations and by generating awareness of the issue.
To date, we have hosted more than 300 donation events across the country from Anchorage, Alaska to Miami, Florida. We have also given more than 74.5 million servings of protein to our neighbors in need through annually scheduled donation events and disaster relief efforts. The need, and our work, continues.
This year, we've already hosted more than 25 protein donation events, giving more than 9.5 million servings of protein. We're reaching millions with our message to do what they can to fight hunger—so far that's nearly 11 million people across traditional media platforms and nearly 400,000 people across social media.
