Harvest Pack and IICF assemble meals for those in need
This is part four of a five-part, weekly series for the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation's Month of Giving.
Harvest Pack, a national organization addressing food insecurity in local communities, has served more than 13 million people with healthy food across the United States. The Minneapolis-based nonprofit organizes meal-packing events in local communities nationwide, supported by volunteers who assemble dehydrated ingredients into healthy meals. These meals are then donated to nonprofit partners, who distribute them to community members in need.
Founded in 2012, Harvest Pack supports communities through national and international nonprofit organizations. Our mission is to provide healthy food on every table, and we envision a world where everyone has access to nutritious meals, regardless of where they were born or their financial circumstances. At Harvest Pack, we believe in a world where people come together to help one another simply because it is the right thing to do.
There is a tremendous need for food across our country. In 2021, more than 10 percent of American households experienced food insecurity, according to the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service.
To help address this need for food security, Harvest Pack serves communities in need by providing turn-key volunteer service meal-packing events for businesses across the U.S. The packed meals are then distributed by our nonprofit partners to those in need within their communities.
This year, insurance professionals from the San Francisco area supported Harvest Pack in a meal-packing event sponsored by the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation’s Western Division. Seventy-seven volunteers representing 12 companies rolled up their sleeves to assemble meals for the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. In total, the IICF team organized and packed 21,120 servings of instant oatmeal for the food bank to share with their community, which supports 53,000 households weekly. The event, hosted by Lockton, welcomed Lockton employees, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Tangram Insurance Services, The Hartford, USI Insurance Services, Zenith Insurance Company, and Zurich North America.
We have seen our impact firsthand in our communities. One nonprofit beneficiary of ours shared, “Harvest Pack has been an important partner of Every Meal and our mission to fight child hunger in our community. Thousands of meals from Harvest Pack have helped children learn, grow, and thrive.”
Organizations like the IICF provide us with the grants and the helping hands we need to fulfill our mission of serving the community. We are exceedingly grateful for the support of IICF and that of their volunteers from across the insurance industry.
This IICF Month of Giving, on the organization’s 30th anniversary, we invite you to join us to support those facing food insecurity by coordinating a meal packing event to serve your local community. To learn more about Harvest Pack, visit https://www.harvestpack.org/.
William McNally is the executive director of Harvest Pack.