Bar food drive to highlight county hunger problems

Along with bringing their two forms of identification, bar crawlers can bring two cans of food to Kilroy's Sports Bar tonight.\nIn collaboration with three students in the IU School of Social Work, Kilroy's Sports Bar will play host to an event benefiting the Hoosier Hills Food Bank. People who bring two canned food goods will not only save a dollar on their cover charge, but they'll also help feed the hungry of Monroe County. \nThose who choose not to participate will pay the $3 cover, and at the end of the night Kilroy's Sports will count what was made. The bar will donate half of the remaining cover charge to Hoosier Hills, an organization that collects and distributes food to needy families of various counties in southern and central Indiana.\n"Kilroy's has been an establishment in Bloomington for a long time now," said Katie Painter, event coordinator for Kilroy's Sports Bar. "We try very hard to give back to the community in every way we can. We thought this would be a good way to raise consciousness about hunger."\nHunger is an issue of mounting concern to this community and to all of Indiana. According to facts compiled by the Hoosier Hills Food Bank, Monroe County has the highest poverty rate in the state, with nearly 20 percent of residents living at or below the poverty level. Similarly, Indiana has the third highest number of food stamp participants in the nation, and the number of children under 18 who are living in poverty is growing each day.\nSenior Jennifer Spalding, one of the students in the School of Social Work who organized the event, said many of the families who rely on food stamps or cash assistance find, at the end of the month, they don't have the money they need to buy groceries. Spalding said these people have no other way to eat except through the food Hoosier Hills distributes to various agencies.\n"If it wasn't for Hoosier Hills Food Bank, many of these families would go hungry and would be at risk of being torn apart," Spalding said. "This issue affects many different populations of people and it takes a community to come together to help serve those in need."\nAnd help they can. For every dollar donated to the food bank, five meals can be provided, said senior Jaclyn Siegel who worked with Spalding on the event. Agencies pay 14 cents per pound of food they receive, Siegel said, so the more people who bring canned goods Thursday, the better. \n"If you have it in your kitchen, donate it." Siegel said. "If you're going to go out and buy it, it might be nice to buy something that you yourself would eat, but we welcome anything people are willing to give."\nSiegel, Spalding and senior Cara Cellini collaborated on an assignment for their social work class, in which they were instructed to organize an event that would bring the community together. They found hunger was an important issue to address because it's a basic need of every human being. It was no accident the event was scheduled for November, Siegel said, because around the holidays people tend to be more interested in getting involved in philanthropy. All three said they hope for a big student turnout because they want to open students' eyes to a problem they may not know exists.\n"We planned this event to make students aware that there is a community outside of the campus," Spalding said. "We wanted to provide them with an opportunity to contribute to an important cause." \n-- Contact staff writer Lindsay Lyon at lrlyon@indiana.edu.