With each Tyson Foods truck delivery, we have asked our local partners to tell the story of hunger in their state and showcase the good work of volunteers and donors. On Tuesday, July 13, we will deliver a truckload to one of the food banks serving the Badger State – Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin in Madison. Here is their story:

Last July, a single mother with four children began attending Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin’s Mobile Pantry Marshall-Waterloo. She has found it a struggle to provide enough food for her growing children with her own resources. The mobile pantry occurs right after she is finished working, but first, she walks home, as she doesn’t have a car, to gather her two children and two empty strollers the kids have outgrown to fill with food. At the mobile pantry, the kids are so excited about all the food and want to hold it in their arms to make sure its gets home. They thank the volunteers for providing the food each time they visit the mobile pantry.

This family’s story is like so many others in Wisconsin: hardworking people aren’t able to make ends meet. Through Second Harvest Foodbank’s partnerships with food pantries, meal sites and shelters, and also through the administration of programs such as Mobile Pantries, the Foodbank ensures our neighbors have access to food and don’t have to choose, for example, whether they’ll eat or pay their mortgage.

We all think we’ve experienced hunger – our stomachs growl, we grab a snack to hold us over until our next meal or just tough it out until dinnertime. But real hunger is an uneasy or painful feeling that results from unwillingly going for an extended period of time without adequate food to sustain health and strength

Food, along with clothing and shelter, is the most basic human need, and yet so many people in southwestern Wisconsin served by the Foodbank truly don’t know from where their next meal will come. These families, children and seniors aren’t able to obtain nutritionally adequate and safe foods in socially acceptable ways to sustain active, healthy lives.

Over the last two years, the partner food pantries, shelters, meal sites and other agencies served by Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin reported an increased year-round need for food assistance. To quantify this, the Foodbank was one of 185 that participated in the national Hunger in America 2010 study conducted for Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.

The study reports Second Harvest Foodbank is serving 83% more people than in 2006. This means we now serve 140,600 individuals–43% of whom are children. That’s 22,700 people receiving emergency assistance in any given week. Of those served by Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin:
• 43% are children under 18 years old; 10% are children 0-5 years of age.
• 3% are elderly.
• 7% are homeless.
• 54% of households include at least one employed adult.
• 60% of households have incomes below the official federal poverty level.
• 75% have at least a high school education.
• 93% are U.S. citizens.

While we wish we could say the worst is behind us, we cannot. Elaine Waxman, Director of Social Policy Research at Feeding America, reports, “What we know from studying earlier recessions is that unemployment is a lagging indicator…and poverty lags unemployment by one or two years at a minimum. We’re not likely to get back to the poverty rates we saw pre-recession for at least the next 10 years.”

Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin is looking at four key areas to address this unprecedented need. While confident in our approach to get more food in, we’re addressing how to distribute this additional food and refining strategies to effectively pinpoint places within our 16-county service area that need more assistance. We are increasing the number of mobile pantries, adding more sites for our BackPack and Kids Cafe programs to serve youth and increasing FoodShare Wisconsin (food stamps) outreach to boost eligible families’ food budgets and ability to access more food at grocers. And, the Foodbank continues to mobilize the public to give funds, food, time and voice toward ending hunger in southwestern Wisconsin.

Thank you to Tyson Foods and the WeCanEndThis.com campaign, and to all of you reading this for learning more about hunger in Wisconsin. Together, we can end this!