Painter Stone
Lambda Chi Alpha’s (LCA) Pumpkin Bust food drive kicks off this week, collecting canned food for Feeding America, a non-profit organization that provides food to food banks.
Feeding America is an organization that looks to end hunger in the U.S. They have branches and food banks across the country and is the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.
72% of the homes that Feeding America served lived either at the poverty level or below it, according to Feeding America’s webpage. They have 200 food banks across America and 60,000 food parties.
According to Feeding America, they also provides access to other programs that help impoverished or hungry families, including easy application for SNAP, programs for families with children, programs for the elderly and assistance for families that were recently in a disaster.
The event will have free food as well as games. Organizations from across campus will come to compete in friendly competition. LCA and Feeding America partnered up in 2013, and the UW branch consistently volunteers at the local soup kitchen, racking over one hundred hours last semester.
“We currently have about twenty-four hundred [people who are food insecure] in our system,” said Max Stedelton from Laramie’s local food bank, Interfaith. “But we expect that we are not actually serving all of the families that are food insecure.”
Stedelton said Interfaith wants to host similar food drives every month within the next year to help those who are food insecure. They also said that the Laramie branch hopes to bring healthy meals to the Laramie community, and reduce the stigma that is associated with asking for help.
“…there is a stigma that is related to needing help, and I think the overall picture is to reduce the amount of stigma that is related to that, Stedelton said. “Everybody falls on hard times.”
People who have any interest in volunteering at Laramie Interfaith can email Max Stedelton about beginning to help your community put food on families’ tables at max@laramieinterfaith.org.
