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September 5, 2010

Million Meals program aims to feed the hungry in a land of plenty

By Maureen Hayden CNHI Statehouse Bureau

ANDERSON, Ind. — David Hardin’s family-owned hog farm had survived nearly two years of economic downturn.

A plunging pork market had led to a $20 loss on every pig sold, when a colleague came to him with a request last summer: Would he and his fellow pork producers in the state provide a million meals to feed hungry people in Indiana?

The timing was bad, given hog farmers were facing some of the biggest financial losses in their history.

But Hardin’s answer came easily, he said. “We knew it was tough for us, but we knew it was even tougher for a lot of other people.”

Soon after, the Indiana Pork Producers Association, with support from other agricultural associations in the state, launched an alliance with Feeding Indiana’s Hungry, a statewide network of food banks that supplies more than 1,700 food pantries across the state.  

Dubbed the Million Meals program, it’s so far provided more than 100,000 pounds of lean ground pork — about 400,000 meals — to a system heavily reliant on donations and badly in need of sources of fresh protein.

“Meat is one of the least-donated items and one of the most expensive for us to buy,” said Emily Weikert Bryant, executive director of Feeding Indiana’s Hungry. “This is making an incredible difference. And the fact that this food is coming from Hoosier producers who themselves had gone through hard times means even more to us.”

Mike Platt, the executive director of the Indiana Pork Producers Association, who initiated the idea for  the Million Meals program, witnessed the need firsthand when he visited a food bank last summer in northern Indiana. “There were boxes and boxes of Cheerios and Doritos, but almost no meat,” Platt said. “You could see there was just an incredible need for protein.”

The need for donations of all sources of nutrition is getting more attention this month. In late August, U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar helped kick off the second year of the Hoosiers Fighting Hunger campaign, a month-long effort to raise awareness about hunger in a land of plenty.

Lugar convinced three of the state’s biggest food retailers — Kroger, Walmart and Marsh — to partner in a statewide food drive after hearing from the state’s food banks that demand for their services had increased more than 30 percent.

Last year, the food banks served more than 700,000 Hoosiers — half of them children and the elderly.

During the month of September, the three grocers are offering pre-bagged food items, to be donated to the state’s food-bank system, for purchase at the $3, $5 and $10 levels.

There will be no lack of need. Demand remains high at the food banks at a time when one of the sources of their funding through the federal stimulus program is coming to an end.

“One thing we know is that even as the economy picks up, household income is slower to rise after a recession,” Bryant said. “We’ll still see the higher level of need for a while.”

Maureen Hayden is Statehouse bureau chief for CNHI’s Indiana newspapers. She can be reached at Maureen.hayden@indianamediagroup.com.

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