Volunteers in action at the Livingston, McLean & Woodford County Meal Packaging Event this spring where they packaged over 20,000 food servings to donate to local area food banks to help feed people in communities. (Photo courtesy of U of Illinois Extension)

Across the state, one event at a time, Illinois 4-H members and volunteers are working on creating more food-secure communities where they live.

On April 4, Illinois 4-H passed a major milestone, providing more than one million meals to families as part of the 4-H Feeding & Growing Our Communities initiative.

Food access is a major initiative of Illinois 4-H. “In Illinois, one in five children face hunger weekly,” Million said. “Children struggle to learn if they are hungry.”

The efforts began in November 2013, said Bill Million, University of Illinois Extension 4-H youth development specialist. 4-H members evaluate the hunger issues in their local communities and develop strategies to meet the challenges.

One of those strategies has been sponsorship of meal-packaging events. Illinois 4-H works with Illini Fighting Hunger, a U of I student group operated out of Wesley Foundation in Urbana.

“4-H club members purchase bulk ingredients, then measure to fill family-size packages of the soy-based casserole meals,” Million said. “The meals are distributed to local food pantries and service organizations to be distributed to families in need.”

The ingredients cost about 14 cents per meal, and 4-H clubs hosting a meal-packaging event must raise funds to cover the cost of the meals they package.

With the help of local donations from the first event, last fall, the Illinois 4-H Feeding and Growing Our Communities initiative and Illinois 4-H Foundation, Livingston, McLean and Woodford counties 4-H was able to hold their second successful meal packaging event contributing another 20,000 servings adding to the million mark this spring.

Community organizations and individuals are still welcome to donate to future meal packaging events with a check payable to the McLean County Extension Service Foundation, with a note that the contribution is to be made available for future 4-H Meal Packaging Events.

For more information on donating or getting involved in our 4-H & Extension programming, visit us at go.illinois.edu/LMW or contact us at the McLean County Extension Office (1615 Commerce Parkway, Bloomington, IL 61704) at (309) 663-8306.

—- 4-H initiative fights hunger in McLean, Woodford counties —-