Many in our community struggled during the pandemic, but Kris Pate,
President of United Way of La Porte County, along with her team and partners were
determined to make an impact in the greatest way possible. After discussing
with Jim Musical (CCH) and learning the impact that food shortages and lack of
food resources was having on the community, a Food Distribution Initiative was
born. The Food Bank of Northern Indiana provided the food purchased by United
Way while Citizens Concerned for the Homeless organized and operated the
planning and distribution.
Since the beginning, these Food Distributions have benefitted from
the many community collaborators who have participated. Farmers to Families
provided combination boxes featuring dairy, produce, and pre-cooked meat.
Purdue Northwest provided many volunteers from their social work program to
give their students a chance to see firsthand how our local communities can all
come together to work toward a common goal. The Morgan Family Foundation made
repeated financial contributions to ensure that families in La Porte County had
access to food.
Food supplies continue to be stretched, and it’s important for
people to understand that food insecurity has no boundaries. These drive-thru
distributions are a way to immediately reach members of the community who are struggling
to feed themselves and their families. In order to
reach the goal of a county-wide impact, the Mobile Food Distributions were held
in seven different cities including: Michigan City, La Porte, New Carlisle, Wanatah,
Kingsford Heights, Westville, and Hanna.
“We especially want to thank Jim Musial and his staff
at Citizens Concerned for the Homeless, the Food Bank of Northern Indiana, the
Morgan Family Foundation, and our many volunteers, including Sullair, NIPSCO,
GAF Materials, Dollar General, and Visit Michigan City La Porte for helping us
meet the needs of those in our community,” said Kris Pate, President and CEO of
United Way of La Porte County. “The day was made even more special when Dollar
General employees presented a $1000 check to United Way at the event to help
support food distributions. Al’s Supermarkets, a long-time United Way partner and
supporter of the community, chipped in additional food certificates to
supplement the ones purchased by United Way,” Pate added.
The success of this collaboration has really made a difference for
people in our local communities. Throughout
the two-year period, this partnership saw 209,210 pounds of free, healthy food
distributed to 7,546 families
impacting 22,801 individual family members.
At this event, we witnessed over 500 cars circling the
entire mall and two out-lots to receive our food supply which was only sufficient
to serve 300 families. According to Jim Musial, Executive Director at Citizens
Concerned for the Homeless, “There just wasn’t enough. La Porte
County currently has a Food Insecurity Rate of 13.9%, more than 3.1% above the
State of Indiana Rate (10.8%) and 2.1% above the United States Rate (11.8%). (Data
source Feeding America).” “Seeing all of those cars
in line just shows how there is still a GREAT need for food in our community,”
said Ellen Meihofer, Director of Community Engagement of United Way of La Porte
County.
Our community members are very
grateful for this help. So many smiling faces when they pull up for their food,
some even have tears of joy and relief. United Way hopes to be able to continue
to raise funds for more of these events in 2023. To make a donation, please
visit www.unitedwaylpc.org/give-now or mail your gift to United Way of La Porte
County, 422 Franklin Street, Suite D, Michigan City, IN 46360.
