Harvest Regional Food Bank is working hard to raise awareness of how hunger affects people in this region.
The organization kicked off a month of activities in September with its Hunger Action Luncheon on Tuesday at Williams Memorial United Methodist Church. September is National Hunger Action Month.
"What comes from the heart reaches the heart," Adra Hallford, Harvest board president, said to the 200 or so people who attended the event. "We might think our community is immune from (hunger) but we are not. It's your actions and our actions together that make a difference in the lives of children, seniors and the working poor."
September might be the month to raise awareness of hunger, but it is a problem all year long.
"Last year we distributed over 3.2 million pounds of food in our 10-county area. That's equal to 3 million meals and fed 55,000 food-insecure individuals living in our area," said Camille Wrinkle, Harvest executive director.
"We have high rates of food insecurity all over our area. In some of our counties up to 40 percent of the people are in poverty and food insecure. That tells us the need is out there," Wrinkle said.
Many families are living on the cusp of food insecurity.
"It only takes one life event to start the dominoes in process. That could be the loss of a job or a car accident," Wrinkle said.
Harvest Regional Food Bank has a variety of programs in the community helping combat hunger including:
- A backpack program, which provides nutritious snacks and easy-t0-eat meals to nearly 1,000 food-insecure schoolchildren kids to sustain them over the weekends.
- A mobile pantry program, which takes food boxes into rural communities to feed the hungry who may not have access to one of Harvest Regional Food Bank's partner agencies.
- A food rescue program, which picks up food from local restaurants or grocery stores once they are done with it. That food is then given to shelters or soup kitchens who feed the hungry.
- A food banking program, which partners with more than 75 agencies in the community working to fight hunger.
"Our goal is just to reach as many of those 55,000 food-insecure individuals as we possibly can," Wrinkle said.
Anyone who would like to help fight hunger in ways large or small is invited to check out Harvest's 30 Ways in 30 Days calendar, which provides an idea per day about how someone can contribute to this issue. The calendar is available on Harvest Regional Food Bank's Facebook page and will be on the agency's website throughout the month of September at harvestregionalfoodbank.org.