Hunger Facts:
- 46.5 million people in the U.S. are food-insecure individuals
- 1 in 10 food-insecure adults is a student
- 66 percent of food-insecure individuals had to choose between food and medical care
- 57 percent of food-insecure individuals had to choose between food and housing
Information courtesy of Feeding America
One Ball State student is challenging Greek organizations to wear orange today for National Hunger Action Month.
Morgan Sparks is a volunteer procurement assistant at the Second Harvest Food Bank.
Orange is the unofficial color of Hunger Action Month, and Sparks decided a good way to raise awareness around Ball State would be to “turn the campus orange” by invoking students wear orange.
The Second Harvest Food Bank serves eight local counties, including Delaware County. It is the premier supplier of food to those who are unable to meet daily food requirements.
John Nieman III, the director of food procurement and volunteers at the Second Harvest Food Bank, refers to these individuals as “food-insecure individuals.” An estimated 74,000 of these individuals are in the eight-county area alone, he said.
“That’s a pretty big number of people who don’t know where food’s going to come from each day,” Nieman said.
Furthermore, 16 percent of food-insecure individuals in the area are children he said.
“You look at that and you think, ‘I hate for kids to go without food,’” Nieman said.
Nieman said that food-insecure children perform more poorly in schools than their counterparts, largely due to the fact that they are unable to focus solely on schoolwork.
The food bank normally holds a monthly tailgate in each county where individuals can drive up and have their cars loaded with food by volunteers.
For Hunger Action Month, the food bank has held several additional tailgates. One was held in Muncie on Sept. 4, and another was held in Henry County on Sept. 12.
Nieman said these additional tailgates collectively served 700 cars, the equivalent of 2,100 families.
Hunger Action Month is particularly important to the Second Harvest Food Bank because it inspires people to volunteer during the non-holiday season.
More individuals volunteer during Thanksgiving and Christmas than any other time of the year, he said
“Quite honestly, it’s those non-holiday times, the average week, that we worry most about how we are going to get food to those food-insecure individuals,” Nieman said.
Still, he said there are numerous ways to contribute including donating food or volunteering at the food bank itself. Volunteering could mean buying lunch for a food-insecure individual or seeing what it is like to live on the poverty-level wage of $5 per week.
“If we can make people aware of [hunger], they can act in ways…that change it in their community,” he said.
In an effort to get Ball State involved in the change of the community, Sparks is also spreading the Wear Orange message on social media.
Organizations can post group pictures and selfies on the Second Harvest Food Bank’s Facebook page.
Twitter users can also use #WhyIWearOrange to demonstrate how they are helping raise awareness.
The Wear Orange campaign may represent Ball State’s biggest collective effort to help, but Sparks said there are many other ways to help.
“We’re always up for someone who thinks they have a new idea on how to help out,” Sparks said.
Those interested in volunteering with the Second Harvest Food Bank can visit www.curehunger.org or the food bank’s Facebook page.
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