Tuesday, May 19, 2009

ALABASTER, AL --- Shelby Baptist Medical Center recently joined Magic City Harvest as a weekly contributor. Magic City Harvest is the non-profit prepared and perishable food distribution program of greater Birmingham, helping to alleviate hunger, malnutrition, and food waste through the free distribution of donated excess foods to programs feeding those in need.

"Restaurants, grocers, caterers, corporations, civic and faith organizations, food wholesalers, brokers and other food providers are joining together and contributing to this great cause. Now, instead of disposing of leftover edible excess food, we are caring for our community and helping to alleviate hunger by working together," said Pat Cowley, Assistant Director of Food Services at Shelby Baptist.  

Magic City Harvest distributes food to agencies who feed an average of 4,000 clients each day.

###

About Shelby Baptist Medical Center - Shelby Baptist Medical Center is a 192-bed acute care facility in Alabaster with more than 1,000 employees.  The hospital offers a comprehensive range of clinical services including cardiology, obstetrics/gynecology, emergency services, orthopedics, neurology, urology and gastroenterology, along with specialized medical and surgical care. A five-story South Bed Tower is scheduled to open in fall of 2009 and will offer 167,712 new square feet featuring private rooms, clinical laboratory, central sterile supply, admitting, registration area, chapel, public space and mechanical space. Other technological advances at the facility include a 3 Tesla MRI, a robotic surgery program and a state-of-the-art invasive cardiology suite.

About Baptist Health System- Founded in 1922, Baptist Health System, Inc. is one of the largest health care systems in Alabama and one of the state's largest employers. The System is a not-for-profit, 501(c) corporation that owns and manages four hospitals in the state of Alabama. Baptist Health System is a ministry of the churches of the Birmingham Baptist Association, whose representatives elect the Board of Trustees. It was founded in 1922 by a group of local Baptist congregations.

About Magic City Harvest - Magic City Harvest is the only program operating in the three county area of Jefferson, Shelby and Talladega whose sole program focus is food recovery, food waste and nutrition. Magic City Harvest continues to experience significant annual increases in food requests from current recipient agencies as well as new feeding program assistance requests.