State Fair of Texas Guests Donate Nearly 200,000 Pounds of Food to NTFB
The donated cans will support neighbors facing hunger throughout NTFB’s 13-county service area.

State Fair of Texas guests donated nearly 200,000 pounds of peanut butter and canned goods to the North Texas Food Bank during the 2024 Feed the Need Food Drive.
Donations were accepted on Opening Day, Sept. 27, when fairgoers were invited to bring two jars of peanut butter in exchange for a $10 admission voucher, and each Wednesday of the fair, when guests could give five full-sized canned goods to receive a $5 admission voucher. In total, 198,435 pounds of food were given, including 22,000 jars of peanut butter. That is the equivalent of around 165,362 meals that will be distributed to neighbors throughout NTFB’s 10,000-square-mile service area.
“The ‘Feed the Need’ drive is our largest canned food event, and we are grateful to the State Fair of Texas, Kroger and the community for their support,” said NTFB President and CEO Trisha Cunningham. “With 1 in 7 North Texans facing hunger, this event is crucial for ensuring families, children and older adults in our community have access to food.”
What happens once a can is dropped into a box at a State Fair of Texas entrance gate?
NTFB’s transportation team picks up each pallet of donated cans and brings it back to NTFB’s Perot Family Campus warehouse in Plano.
Once there, volunteers sort through and organize the cans so that they can be inventoried and added to NTFB’s online system, which is used by partner pantries and community organizations for ordering food that they will distribute to individuals in their community.

As soon as the cans are placed on order, NTFB’s team pulls them from their shelf, and they’re either loaded onto a truck for delivery to a partner pantry or prepared for pickup by a partner that has their own truck.
Several NTFB partner agencies also joined the fair efforts this year, collecting food at a specific gate and then transporting it directly back to their warehouse. Participating partners included Brother Bill’s Helping Hand, Neighbors Nourishing Neighbors, Metrocrest Community Services and Sharing Life, which is one of NTFB’s two redistribution hubs.
Volunteers manned the gates during each collection day, greeting fairgoers and inviting them to drop their cans or jars of peanut butter into cardboard gaylords.
Since 1995, the State Fair of Texas has collected over 4.8 million pounds of food for our neighbors facing hunger.