Second Harvest Food Bank in Muncie is expecting to see a surge of donations and volunteers this holiday season to help bring food to tens of thousands of people in east central Indiana.
Lois Rockhill, Second Harvest executive director, said more donations are always needed to feed those in Delaware County who say they are food insecure— a number she said reaches as high as 18,776 people.
"We need to get volunteers in this time a year so we can get the food out to people who need it," Rockhill said. "Because east central Indiana has such a high unemployment rate, we have probably the 3rd highest level of need in the state."
Rockhill said Second Harvest expects to distribute more than 8.5 million pounds of food this year to the residents of the counties in its jurisdiction, including Delaware County.
The number of Delaware County residents who claim to be food-insecure this year has gone up by about 1,000 from last year according to Rockhill.
In total, the number of people who have requested aid from Second Harvest this year reaches above 70,000 residents, from the eight counties inside the area serviced by 2nd Harvest.
With so much food coming into the bank with the holiday season approaching, Rockhill said that volunteers from Ball State and the rest of Delaware County are more valuable than ever.
Second Harvest Operations Director Joe Fox said volunteerism is always important and doesn't see one season as a better time to donate goods or time than any other.
"Hunger doesn't have anything to do with the holidays; hunger happens everyday," Fox said. "What about the summer time when it's nice and everybody is still hungry? The need goes on and on and on; people are hungry 365 days a year."
Second Harvest will be holding a Hunger Forum on December 14th at 3:00 where experts will talk about hunger and how to solve it. It will be located at the Second Harvest Food Bank on North Old State Road 3.
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