Food insecurity is a nationwide epidemic.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines “food insecurity” as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active healthy life. The term indicates a lack of available financial resources for food at a household level. Children are clearly among those who suffer most.
According to a September 2018 news article, the Temple Daily Telegram reported that Bell County, with a population of over 330,000 has perhaps 64,000 residents who are classified as food insecure.
Can you imagine children going to school without having a good meal to begin the day? Can you imagine working all day and coming home to a bare cupboard or empty refrigerator? To address the issue of food insecurity, the Rotary Clubs of Temple participated in Feed the Need to attack the issue head-on.
Feed the Need is all about service above self. Feed the Need is the engagement of Rotarians working together to meet an identified need that impacts families and especially the most vulnerable, the children.
Acting in partnership with the Salvation Army of Bell County, along with McLane Hunger Solutions, Temple Rotarians banded together to raise funds to purchase food for packing and distribution to the local Salvation Army “McLane Center of Hope”.
Funds were raised through personal requests made at the weekly meeting of the participating Rotary Clubs, as well as through an outreach made to the business community and general public through www.CentralTexasTickets.Com.
In the fall of 2020, Rotarians raised $6,000 for Feed the Need. 300 boxes of food were packed and distributed to the Salvation Army of Bell County. Then most recently in June, 2021, another $3,000 was raised and 240 boxes of food were prepared and distributed. Feed the Need is definitely a Rotarians-At-Work initiative … raising nearly $10,000 to pack and distribute 540 boxes of food.