ABF Freight System, Inc., announces the culmination of the Haul Across America tour, part of the U-Pack-A-BackPack initiative to combat child hunger. During the tour, ABF visited nine cities to collect success stories on overcoming child hunger. The tour ends this week in Washington, D.C., when ABF delivers the collected stories to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., co-founder of the bipartisan Senate Hunger Caucus.

The U-Pack-A-BackPack initiative is a joint effort between America's Second Harvest and ABF U-Pack Moving to create awareness and raise funds to fight child hunger. The initiative is providing one million pounds of food to children at risk of hunger. ABF also is providing a matching gift for donations received through U-PackABackPack.org. The funds are used for a variety of childhood and family hunger initiatives, such as the school backpack and Kids Cafe programs.

"The goal of the Haul Across America tour is to increase awareness about hunger in America and help raise funds to combat the problem," says Kay Lynn Clay, ABF U-Pack Moving manager. "Behind every hunger statistic there is a story of an individual, a child or family and how they ended up in need. The narratives reveal the role that emergency hunger relief organizations serve in communities from coast to coast. We have been proud to play a part in this awareness-building event."

The tour began October 17, 2007 in Portland, Ore. A notebook containing the stories, symbolically carried in a school backpack, traveled in the cab of an ABF truck to nine cities. Stories were added to the collection in each city. The final day of the tour begins at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 5, at Bruce Monroe Elementary in Washington, D.C. The collection of stories will then be presented to Sen. Lincoln at a 1:30 p.m. ceremony on Capitol Hill.

America's Second Harvest is the largest charitable domestic hunger-relief organization in the country with more than 200 member food banks and food-rescue organizations serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The Network supports approximately 50,000 local charitable agencies operating more than 90,000 programs including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs and Kids Cafes.