Pelanda touring the Mid-Ohio Food Bank in Grove City.
The following column was submitted by State Representative Dorothy Pelanda.
Hunger is a growing issue in every Ohio community, including our own. While the cost of food and need for emergency food assistance is on the rise, available food from federal commodity support and manufacturing donations is down.
This week I toured the Mid-Ohio Food Bank in Grove City, which distributes food and grocery products to pantries, shelters, after-school programs and senior housing sites in 20 counties, including Union and Marion.
The Mid-Ohio Food Bank, formerly the Simmons Mattress Factory, operates one and a half daily shifts with 93 employees and 15,000 volunteers. The warehouse includes a shipping and receiving center, individual warehouse sections for packaged and fresh foods, an entire kitchen on wheels for food preparation and educational purposes, a grocery store, and a garden.
In 2011 the Mid-Ohio Food Bank distributed 44 1/2 million pounds of food to Ohioans. That is enough food to provide 101,743 meals each day.
The food arrives from three sources: the food industry, such as Big Lots and Proctor & Gamble; from community food drives; and from the Agricultural Clearance Program, which gives money to the food bank to buy produce from farmers. No food donation is refused.
Because fifty percent of the food received and distributed is fresh, efficient handling of the food is required in a timely manner. This becomes especially challenging when large, unexpected donations arrive. Volunteers are trained in the meat-cutting department to observe religious and cultural ideologies that require the separate handling of one meat from another.
Last year, the food bank received 12 semi-truck loads of turnips, and 10 semi-loads of plums. In response, the food bank immediately brought in volunteer chefs to create simple recipes for these foods.
My visit was inspiring and sobering. Matt Habash, Mid-Ohio Food bank CEO, said it well: “It’s our job to feed hungry neighbors, but it’s our dream to be out of business”.
In looking to the future, statistics reveal that an estimated 3-6 billion pounds of food are left in the fields each year. The Mid-Ohio Food Bank is leading a national initiative to find ways to recover a portion of it by partnering with experts and volunteers to stamp out hunger in Ohio. As a State Representative I was privileged to have an inside look at this impressive operation.
State Representative Dorothy Liggett Pelanda represents the 83rd House District in the Ohio House of Representatives, which includes Union and Logan counties, as well as most of Marion County. You can find more information about and contact Pelanda by clicking here.
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