John van Hengel

In 1983 John left America's Second Harvest to establish Food Banking Inc. (which became International Food Bank Services in 1991 and is now known as Global FoodBanking Network). John served as a consultant to food banks around the world, traveling to Canada, Mexico, Brussels and Spain to oversee the start up of their food banks. John also helped establish food banks throughout Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, South America and Australia.

In 1975 John accepted a $50,000 federal grant which would be utilized to establish 18 food banks across America. In 1976 John left St. Mary's and established America's Second Harvest (known as Feeding America since 2008). Guided by John, this organization established food banking standards and guidelines as well as acquisition of food from large national manufacturers. Businesses were able to cut the costs of disposing unusable but edible food as well as taking tax breaks by helping multiple charities.

Within a year, in 1967, John had established the location at which all the food that grocery stores could not sell would be housed and distributed. He named it St. Mary's Food Bank in honor of the donation provided by St. Mary's Basilica. In accordance to his vow of poverty, John took no salary during his first decade at St. Mary's. He wore secondhand clothes, got his food at the food bank and lived in a donated room above a garage.

His odd jobs included driving a beer truck in Beverly Hills, designing plastic rainwear, a sales manager for Bear Archery and a magazine publicist. John married a model and had two sons. In 1960 his marriage ended in divorce, and he headed back to Wisconsin and went to work in a rock quarry. He became partially paralyzed while breaking up a bar fight. He was sent to Arizona for rehabilitation through the guidance of Barrows Neurological Institute.

John Arnold van Hengel (February 21, 1923 – October 5, 2005) was a grassroots activist and entrepreneur credited as being the "Father of Food Banking". In 1967, van Hengel founded St. Mary's Food Bank, the world's first food bank in Phoenix, Arizona. He would later go on to create Feeding America, helping to spread the food banking concept across the United States, and eventually the rest of the world.