Latest southern Colorado news, weather and sports from FOX21 News

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Wednesday was a big day for Care and Share.

The Southern Colorado food bank received a $10,000 donation from Union Pacific Railroad.

Officials with Care and Share said the money will provide 100,000 pounds of food, equivalent to about 77,000 meals.

"Generally we count one meal as 1.3 pounds," Lynne Telford, President and CEO of Care and Share, said. "We are talking 100,000 pounds of the more than 18 million we will distribute this year, so it is a lot of food, and it really matters to those families."

Telford said it also matters to the hundreds of local soup kitchens and charities who provide hot meals and food boxes to the homeless, sick, at-risk and disabled in southern Colorado.

"Some of those food pantries are open one day a week, others five days a week, it is really dependent," Telford said.

Along with providing food, the donation will also be used to fund Care and Share's many programs including Cooking Matters, designed to teach families how to prepare affordable, healthy meals.

"Obesity and hunger are correlated because a lot of the foods most accessible to low-income families have the most sugar, fat and salt," Becky Mares, Senior Coordinator with Cooking Matters, said.

Mares said Care and Share only has a five percent overhead, so almost everything that is donated goes directly to food or programming.