According to the Food Bank of Iowa, 15.4% of Iowa children (110,500 kids) don’t know when or where they will receive their next meal. Food insecurity is an issue that closely aligns with the Mom’s Meals mission of improving life through better nutrition at home. As part of their corporate social responsibility efforts, Mom’s Meals donated 4,000 shelf-stable meals to the Food Bank of Iowa’s school pantry program.
According to Annette Hacker, vice president of communications at the Food Bank of Iowa, the shelf-stable meals have greatly helped the school pantry due to the nature of the donation.
“They’re nutritious, they’re shelf-stable, easy to store and easy for students or persons of any age to heat and enjoy,” said Hacker. “Anything that’s ready to eat and nutritious, is really just a godsend.”
Like Mom’s Meals, the Food Bank of Iowa is dedicated to combating and bringing awareness to food insecurity. The school pantry program is one way the Food Bank of Iowa is working towards ending food insecurity.
The school pantry program provides free, wholesome food to kids and their families at a location that is already known and convenient to them.
In order to have a school pantry, all the schools need is a dedicated space and a caring school employee to staff the pantry. The Food Bank of Iowa provides all the training and food and delivery free of charge.
“When a child is hungry at school, they’re almost always caregivers and siblings at home who also face food insecurity,” said Hacker. “Having the school pantry allows them to access food in a safe, trusted environment and it meets families and students where they already are at.”
The program first started around seven or eight years ago and since then, has grown tremendously. There are now 159 school pantries in 44 counties, including nearly all of the Des Moines public schools.
History of giving to the Food Bank of Iowa
Along with the most recent donation of 4,000 shelf-stable meals, Mom’s Meals has also donated approximately 50,000 pounds of ingredients to be packaged into meals over the past five years.
“Mom’s Meals has provided us with things like beans, lime juice, hot cocoa mix to name a few,” said Hacker. “It’s a unique mix of products that we rarely, if ever have on inventory, but they’re really desirable items.”
Hacker adds, “We certainly appreciate the steadfast support of Mom’s Meals. We feel that our goals are very aligned and that both of our organizations both Food Bank of Iowa and Mom’s Meals are both working to serve the health and nutritional needs of our communities.”
Mom’s Meals remains committed to it’s company mission since it was founded in 1999, and will continue to help address food insecurity in the communities it serves.
Learn about how Mom’s Meals is working towards combating food insecurity.