I am excited to share the news of Cisco's new partnership with Miriam's Kitchen in Washington, D.C., near my home. Miriam's Kitchen is committed to ending homelessness in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area by providing homeless persons with access to meals, counseling, clean clothes, medical care, permanent housing, and by ensuring they have the necessary support to remain in housing. Miriam's Kitchen served 71,948 meals in 2012 and expects to serve 73,500 meals in 2013.

This is a wonderful organization doing good work for my local community. To help them feed and clothe even more homeless persons, Cisco has provided Miriam's Kitchen with a$25,000 grant. The grant will help provide support for Miriam's Kitchen's meals and case management programs, which provide food and a range of services to thousands of people every day.

Unfortunately, homelessness is a problem of epidemic proportions in Washington, D.C. As of January 2012, there were 1,870 chronically homeless individuals in Washington, D.C. on any given night. Cisco is always looking to help local communities where many of our employees reside and we could not pass up the chance to do just that with Miriam's Kitchen. With the help of the grant from Cisco, Miriam's Kitchen will be able to serve thousands of healthy meals and provide 5,000 homeless individuals with one-on-one assistance in 2013.

Homelessness affects people of all different backgrounds. There are 76,000 homeless veterans in the United States on any given night. At Miriam's Kitchen, nearly 1,000 (or 24%) of their guests are veterans. In addition to providing meals to these veterans Miriam's Kitchen also links them to housing programs specifically tailored for veterans and connects them to services offered through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I want to thank all of the staff at Miriam's Kitchen and the thousands of volunteers who help support families who have nowhere else to turn. These volunteers deserve our thanks and deep appreciation, for without them, hundreds of people would go hungry every day. At Cisco we feel lucky to have the opportunity to support many charities and Miriam's Kitchen is the perfect example of an organization that goes above and beyond serving those who have serve day-in and day-out.