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Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner
than 530,000 individuals in a 17-county area in east central Illinois on an annual basis. Unfortunate- ly, one in every three clients served by the foodbank is a child. Champaign County’s poverty rate
– defined at the federal level as an income less than $24,250 for a family of four – is estimated to be 22.3 percent, higher than Cook County’s rate of 16.9 percent. As one might imagine, families that struggle to put food on the table find it especially difficult to provide healthy meals. The meals that are packaged during this event provide essential nutrients and are designed to be simple to prepare as many parents in families that are food insecure work long hours.
A unique aspect of this event is the opportunity for groups to volunteer together, including students and their moms or families. Previous volunteers have ranged in age from four to ninety-four. Jim Hires of the Eastern Illinois Foodbank captured the essence of what makes this event so inspiring. He said, “The Community and Campus Day of Service is a perfect example of the strength of col- laboration and activism in truly nourishing stronger communities. This year [2015] was very special,
as literally generations of families gave back to their community by working together to fight food in-
security. Joining together to solve problems in this manner lets us know that things can be changed.” This is especially important to the university, as one of the goals in the Strategic Plan is to “develop our students to be future leaders with strong communication skills and who are engaged in their communities.”
Last year, a special guest joined this event; Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner. He had planned to arrive at Memorial Stadium in the early afternoon to talk with volunteers and participate in the meal packaging. The Thursday before the event, severe weather brought strong tornadoes to several northern Illinois counties. A number of families in Fairdale and Rochelle lost their homes. Public Engagement worked with a representative from Governor Rauner’s office to modify plans for the meal packaging event so that approximately 12,000 meals were redirected to the shelters serving the tornado victims. Incidentally, since volunteers exceeded the goal by more than 12,000 meals, Eastern Illinois Foodbank still received 148,000 meals, as planned, though they were more than willing to give up some of the meals to benefit the tornado victims.
2015 was unique for another reason as IFH achieved a very impressive milestone. During February 2015 at an event in Monticello, the group packaged their millionth meal. They celebrated with a banquet at the 77 Club at Memorial Stadium on Tuesday, April 14. IFH has organized events for a number of community groups over the past three years, including student groups, university activities and events, entire towns, 4H clubs throughout the state, and many others. The leadership team frequently spends evenings and weekends planning and managing events that provide service opportunities as well as benefit needy families throughout Illinois and beyond. Some of their events have benefited other countries, such as a meal packaging event for Haiti. Going forward, they have established the Damhorst Grant, which will provide funding to other groups that want to start leading packaging events in their community.
The grant will enable them to purchase equipment and other resources to host meal packaging events. Max Colon, Presi- dent of IFH, said “The Day of Service events have greatly contributed to IFH’s success in packaging more than 1.3 mil- lion meals for those in need. We look forward to continuing
our public engagement activities as we move forward in our hunger fighting efforts!” Greg Damhorst,
founder and past president of IFH, added, “This incredible
milestone after
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