In 2014, over 48 million Americans, 15 million of which were children, lived in homes with insufficient food supplies. With such devastating statistics, the staff and students at Ross Medical Education Center in Evansville, Indiana were eager and happy to help. The campus held a food drive competition for the month of March. Their mission was to collect as many non-perishable items as possible and then donate them to the Tri-State Food Bank, a local non-profit organization with locations in Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois.
Tri-State Food Bank provides food and nutrition to families and children within the community by relying on food organizations, donors, and local charities. As a food bank, they collect and distribute the donations they receive to non-profit food organizations. The reason for this is because food donations are often too large for an organization to safely handle and store. However, Tri-State Food Bank has the resources to safely store items that need to be refrigerated and then later distributed to other organizations. Additionally, those food banks are often better equipped to be able to disperse donations to areas that need it the most, such as disaster sites or local outreach programs.
By the end of March, the Ross Evansville campus had collected over 1,200 food items! They were thrilled to be able to donate all of those items to this great local organization. Several items that are often requested because of their popularity include peanut butter, pasta, tuna, beans, and soup. So, the campus tried to focus in on some of these high deman items. By the end of the competition, the morning Medical Assistant class won the food bank competition by donating over 700 items! They were proud to have won the competition, but even more so of the impact that their generosity would make on people’s lives.
To find out more about Evansville’s local food bank, check out www.tristatefoodbank.org or the Tri-State Food Bank Facebook page. To find a food bank in your local area, and to learn more about hunger in the United States, visit Feeding America’s Local Food Bank Search.