Local food bank works to raise awareness of hunger in September

Mike Ingram, board president of Harvest Regional Food Bank, shakes hands with kids from the PRIDE academy for winning an award at Williams Memorial on Tuesday, August 27, 2019, in Texarkana, Texas. Harvest Regional Food Bank kicked off Hunger Action Month with a luncheon at Williams Memorial.
Mike Ingram, board president of Harvest Regional Food Bank, shakes hands with kids from the PRIDE academy for winning an award at Williams Memorial on Tuesday, August 27, 2019, in Texarkana, Texas. Harvest Regional Food Bank kicked off Hunger Action Month with a luncheon at Williams Memorial.

Harvest Regional Food Bank kicked off Hunger Action Month with a luncheon Tuesday at Williams Memorial Methodist Church. Hunger Action Month will be celebrated throughout September with a variety of activities aiming to raise awareness of the issue and funds to help combat it.

"Our whole purpose is to make sure meals happen because where there's a meal, good things follow," said Camille Wrinkle, Harvest executive director. "We've kept our eye on the real goal which is serving and ministering to people through hunger relief."

In the past year, Harvest provided more than 3 million pounds of food to the counties it serves.

In the nine Arkansas counties served by Harvest, 22% of the people are at risk of being hungry. Numbers weren't available for Bowie County, the only Texas county in the food bank's service area.

Recently, Harvest was recognized by the Feeding America for providing at least 50% of the meals needed to fill the gap for hungry families in each of the 10 counties it serves.

"For many years we've struggled having as many as eight of 10 counties in the red. Little by little, we've improved and for the first time ever we were all green. It's a big accomplishment for the food bank. We couldn't do it without everyone in this room," she said. "A lot of our area is rural and underserved. It's a challenge but one we're meeting head-on."

The agencies, churches and other groups working with Harvest were recognized during the event.

"Our agencies are the ones who serve those meals and hand out food boxes," Wrinkle said.

Connie Gregory, food ministry coordinator at First Baptist Church, Redwater, Texas, spoke at the event about working with the food bank.

"On Wednesday nights, we feed approximately 120 kids in kindergarten through sixth grade, 60 to 80 youth and around 60 adults. Some of these kids are identified as needy children. With a lot of hard work and a lot of volunteers we provide food boxes each month to about 60 families," Gregory said. "Thank you to Harvest for the relationship we have with you and for helping us serve the Redwater community."

At the event, Harvest Regional Food Bank gave those in attendance a copy of its '30 Ways in 30 Days' calendar, which details an activity that can be done each day in September to help with hunger relief.

Some of those activities are fundraisers at local vendors and others are as simple as making a Facebook status about hunger relief. To find the calendar, visit hrfb.org.

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