In Lois Rockhill’s 23 year tenure as executive director at Second Harvest Food Bank, she has been on the front lines of fighting hunger in Indiana.
On Wednesday, the College of Sciences and Humanities will present Rockhill with the Indiana Women of Achievement Award in recognition of her years of service to east central Indiana through Second Harvest. Rockhill receives this award with Distinction in Caring for the Hungry. This award is given to six Hoosier women who make a significant impact on their communities.
The Associate Dean of the College of Sciences and Humanities Susan Johnson said Rockhill was chosen because her work has had such a large-scale impact across Indiana.
“Lois Rockhill has fed so many people and has helped people’s well-being,” Johnson said. “Her work has influenced more than 120 agencies in an eight-county area that brings food to people that don’t have any.”
Rockhill feels “honored and humbled” to be recognized with this award.
“It might be difficult for me and others to see ourselves as being distinguished in areas,” Rockhill said. “There are always people that seem as worthy or more worthy of the award.”
Second Harvest, where Rockhill served as executive director until her retirement in March 2012, is a food bank located in Muncie that works in eight Indiana counties with the goal of providing food to those that are struggling.
When she took over as the second executive director of the food bank in 1989, Second Harvest was only in its sixth year. Since then, Second Harvest has grown to serving around 60,000 people with 73 million pounds of food per year. She oversaw this growth and a move of the central food bank location from Anderson, Ind., to Muncie in 2007.
Looking back on her time at Second Harvest, she said she is most proud of the organization for staying strong as it continued to grow over the years.
“[Second Harvest] continues to keep to our mission of providing food to people in need,” Rockhill said. “We stayed focused and that helped us to grow. It’s a really community effort that made that possible and continues to make that possible.”
Tim Kean, president and CEO of Second Harvest, has worked with Rockhill for much of her tenure with the food bank as both an employee and board member. He said Rockhill was instrumental in guiding the growth and development of Second Harvest over the years. She reached out to potential donors, built up the volunteer base and advocated for hunger needs to local representatives.
One project Rockhill pioneered was the Second Harvest tailgate program in which food is distributed directly to clients twice a month at a designated location. Second Harvest is able to give out large amounts of food in a short amount of time with these events.
“She was one of the early folks in the food bank world who aggressively pursued the global food pantry concept, taking food to people instead of them coming to facility,” Kean said. “You load up the truck with food and you advertise where truck will be and people can show at that time and receive food.”
Rockhill agreed and cited this as one of her proudest accomplishments in her time as executive director because the program reaches out to all eight counties Second Harvest serves, not just Delaware County where the pantry is located.
Rockhill said a central theme in her work was dealing with the growth of Second Harvest and raising awareness in the community. She said Central Harvest could never satisfy the need for aid, even though its operations grow at about 15 percent each year.
“[Second Harvest was] growing and service is growing and your presence in the community grows, and that’s probably the most positive thing,” she said. “More people know about Second Harvest than ever before and people understand its importance. They give more, whether it is in money or volunteering.”
Kean said the staff of Second Harvest is glad to see Rockhill recognized for her years of service to the east central Indiana.
“Anyone whose passion is deemed at lifting people up, over the course of the years they don’t necessarily get recognized for their efforts,” Kean said. “You’re in trenches doing dirty work day after day, and that’s reward enough to see people who are benefiting from that. But when there’s an opportunity from a large body to recognize what someone has done, I think it’s wonderful, she certainly deserves it.”
