In July of 2014, the food bank distributed 413,835 pounds of food, more than any other month in its 32-year history.
With an increase in fresh produce deliveries and an almost equally successful August, HHFB is looking forward to a productive end to the year.
“We distributed the most food in a month ever in July, and that was through a variety of sources — either agencies coming to pick it up or us making deliveries,” HHFB Executive Director Julio Alonso said.
HHFB distributes to fewer than 100 partner agencies whose missions align with feeding the hungry.
These include other nonprofit agencies like food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, youth programs, low-income daycares and domestic violence centers.
“The vast majority of the food we distribute is ?donated,” Alonso said.
“We serve as sort of a middle man. We go around to all sorts of retail outlets, grocery stores, wholesalers ... and collect food that they would otherwise be ?throwing out.”
HHFB also has a “garden and gleaning” program with local farmers, where they collect produce that would otherwise be wasted from their fields, a prepared food rescue program with local restaurants and their own garden at Will Detmer Park that provides fresh fruits and vegetables.
Most of the food collected from these various sources comes back to the warehouse, where it is either picked up by partner agencies or delivered by HHFB drivers. HHFB delivers to six counties in southern Indiana, Monroe being the largest ?recipient.
This year, most of the food transportation was done in July, which Alonso said was not out of the ?ordinary.
“July was also our largest month last year,” Alonso said. “That does surprise a lot of people because (they) tend to think your heaviest months are going to be the holidays, and those are heavy months, but the fact is that the problem is year round and during the summer when a lot of kids are out of school and don’t have access to school meals, a lot of our agencies are working harder to get more food out through their programs.”
HHFB has been responding to this year-round demand in multiple ways, most notably by implementing their new program called “Grow: the Garden Route on Wheels” that delivers fresh produce to smaller agencies in Bloomington.
“That’s been a big part of the numbers we’re seeing here ... it’s always an item that’s in demand by our agencies because there’s more attention nowadays to nutritional value of food distributed and freshness of food,” Alonso said. “We believe that’s just as important for food pantry clients as someone going to the grocery store or managing their own diet.”
HHFB continues to make strides toward providing more people with more healthy food options and increasing their distribution numbers, but according to Alonso, it could always use more volunteers.
Hunger Action Month, a Feeding America initiative, takes place in September, and there’s no better time to get involved.
