Walmart, in partnership with Feeding America and five of its food suppliers — ConAgra Foods, General Mills, Kellogg Company, Kraft Foods, and Unilever — has announced two new programs to fight hunger in communities nationwide this fall.

Through a $2.5 million campaign, Walmart will randomly award "Golden Sparks" worth $50,000 each to forty communities to fund backpack programs that provide meals to food-insecure children over the weekend, when they don't have access to free- or reduced-price school meals. Through October 14, consumers can enter at www.walmart.com/hunger or Walmart's Live Better Facebook app to win a "Spark" for their community. Walmart employees also are eligible to compete to win ten additional "Golden Sparks" for their stores and communities by logging the most hunger relief volunteer hours during the campaign.

"A recent survey of Feeding America Food Bank executive directors showed that food supply is extremely low and there is a concern that the drought will have an adverse effect on foodbanks who have to purchase food and families that will have to stretch their already thin food budgets," said Matt Knott, interim president and CEO of Feeding America. "This fall initiative, led by Walmart and some of the nation's leading food companies, comes at a very critical time for our foodbanks and the millions of Americans that rely on our resources to feed their families."