More than 250 people showed up Sunday morning at Newhall Park in their jogging shoes, ready for the 13th annual 5k Run Against Hunger - the Santa Clarita Valley Food Pantry's biggest fundraiser of the year.

The organization may have raised as much as $10,000 in the one event, race volunteers at the site said, and that's money that will go directly to supplying the pantry's approximately 2,000 local clients each month who are poor and need assistance feeding their families.

"Whatever we have, we give out to the community," said Belinda Crawford, executive director of the SCV Food Pantry.

The group gives out bags of groceries, some donated from local residents, and even more donated from local shopping stores and restaurants.

Sunday's monetary assistance comes at an opportune time, as the pantry's inventory is always severely depleted after the summer months, when kids must eat all their meals at home instead of getting free or subsidized lunches from school, she added.

As much as 40 percent of the year's food supply is donated between November and December, but the pantry is in need of supplies all year-round, Crawford said.

The food that goes the most quickly are canned fruit, canned tomatoes, canned beans and 18-ounce jars of peanut butter.

Sunday morning, runners got a chance to put at least money in the pantry's bank, and some awareness into the neighborhood that the SCV Food Pantry needs year-round support.

"I want to help out. I didn't know that (the food pantry) was out in Santa Clarita," said Tanya Koshak, first-place winner in the female 16 to 18 age group.

She came to the 5k as a part of a peer counseling project at her high school which required her to run in a race, but it opened her eyes as well - and her friend's.

"I've never run for a purpose before," Louis Chavarria, 17, said.

In the city of Santa Clarita, nearly 8 percent of all children live below the federal poverty level. Almost 6 percent of those over 18 years old do, according to county data.

This information shows that more than one in four black children in Santa Clarita live below the poverty level, as well as close to 16 percent of Hispanic children.

Half of all of the SCV Food Pantry's clients are children, according to its Web site.