Taipei, March 31 (CNA) A food bank run by the Department of Social Affairs under the Taichung city government was inaugurated Tuesday, with assistance from over 80 charitable organizations based in the central Taiwan city and the first distribution of aid materials set for May.

Department director Chang Kuo-hui presided over the opening of the “Dadun Love Food Bank” located in retail premises offered by a sympathetic citizen to the department free of charge.

The bank has already received a large amount of monetary and material donations from private individuals or groups prior to the start of its first distribution of food or aid materials to people in need at five spots around the city in May, Chang said.

The food bank serves as a warehouse and management center in which items donated by people from all walks of life to the city government to help the impoverished can be stored.

Chang said he was really touched to see so many packs of food and so much money flooding into the bank shortly after it opened earlier that same day.

“The kindness of the Taiwanese people has not been hit by the economic crisis,” he said.

Contributions to the food bank included NT$1 million (US$29,400) from the private Wenying Foundation and NT$125,000 worth of food for 500 people from former Taichung Mayor Lin Poh-jung, who is now an adviser to President Ma Ying-jeou.

Among other items were 1,200 packs of rice worth some NT$100,000 donated by a businessman surnamed as Tsai, who paid for the rice with money he would originally have spent on his 50th birthday party.

Apart from its first distribution in May, which will give out rice and other cereal, as well as canned food and noodles, to people in need, city government officials said the bank is projected to conduct two another rounds of distribution in August and November.

The food bank will target jobless people, single parents and people hit hard by disaster in its initial stages, city government officials said.

In mid-February, the city government teamed up with a mobile food bank run by the non-profit Hsingshih Foundation to distribute food packages to low-income families and homeless people at a local activity center.

It was the first time the city and the foundation had teamed up to make use of the mobile food bank service. Some 380 food packages were distributed to members of 100 underprivileged households and 120 cooked meals were handed out to homeless people.

“The city government learned something very valuable from the aid operation in February, despite playing only a support role, ” a city government official said. (By Flor Wang)