Bank of America presented a check for $50,000 to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank Saturday as 150 of its employees gathered at the facility to assemble about 1,000 packages of food for low-income senior citizens.

The Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, a 96,000-square-foot facility in South Los Angeles, disburses 34 million pounds of food each year through a network of 875 distribution centers across Los Angeles County.

The seniors who will receive the bags of food are part of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program. Many of them live only on Social Security, which on its own often does not provide enough money for a nutritious diet. Other seniors in the program are able to work but have lost jobs due to the economic recession. “The program is designed to provide them with a pretty substantial amount of food on a monthly basis, so it can prevent them from going hungry,” Los Angeles Regional Foodbank President and CEO Michael Flood said.

Bank of America has donated a total of $1 million to organizations that fight hunger in several cities across the nation. “It’s something that Bank of America wanted to do because they’ve heard that the demand for food assistance has increased so markedly throughout the United States,” Flood said.

According to the Department of Labor, California has fared particularly badly in the economic recession. The state’s unemployment rate of 11.2 percent is one of the worst in the nation, and the number of people out of work for a year has doubled in the last 12 months. These numbers are reflected in the 36 percent increase in demand for food assistance in Los Angeles.

“Although the Foodbank has increased its volume as far as what we can distribute, it’s still not enough to meet the demand that’s out there,” said Foodbank Communications Director Darren Hoffman.

In 2008, the Bank of America Charitable Foundation donated $200 million to charities, a record for a financial institution. This year the bank pledged to donate $2 billion over the next 10 years to nonprofit organizations “engaged in improving the health and vitality of their neighborhoods.”

Bank of America National Program Manager Dannille Campos said that even though banks are struggling through the economic crisis, “This is a time when the needs are so great, so there’s no way we can cut out philanthropic dollars when the community is so in need right now.”

In addition to assembling food packages at the Foodbank, Bank of America employees also volunteer at food distribution sites in El Monte, Van Nuys, Pacoima and Inglewood, which serve over 1,000 senior citizens. At the distribution sites, Bank of America teaches financial education courses that focus on budgeting and savings.

Organizers of Saturday’s event said it was easy recruit the 150 Bank of America employees needed to assemble the food packages. “The Bank of America associates are very much involved in the community events that we do, so they’re constantly looking to see what we have,” said Marketing Program Development Specialist Angela Molina. “It’s a good feeling to know that the associates are so involved.”