#NorthIowaBloggers Help Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank this Holiday Season

In November, the North Iowa Bloggers teamed together to gather donations and food to help two local food banks, the Franklin County Food Pantry in Hampton and the Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank in Mason City.  And luckily for me I was able to join a few other North Iowa Bloggers a week and a half ago to drop off those donations.

Beth Ann from It's Just Life, Donna from DonnaHup.com, myself,
Jeni from Jeni Eats and Amy from Modern Rural Living dropping off our donation

Thanks to your comments on my blog and several others, as well as actual food donations, we were able to donate 235 pounds of food off at the Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank in Mason City!

After we got everything finalized with our donation, Ozzie Ohl, volunteer at the Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank, gave us a tour of the new facility and demonstrated how it operated.  The Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank is volunteer ran and currently has around 125 volunteers, making it the largest volunteer ran food bank served by the Food Bank of Iowa.  Ozzie's focus at the Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank is to help tell the facility's story to the general public and to help with special events and campaigns in the community.  In the three short years since he started being a volunteer he has worked in the order filling room, gone on food pickups and assisted people at the counter.

Ozzie Ohl demonstrating how the Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank
works for North Iowa families

The Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank is an emergency food bank, so families can visit the facility once a month, where they will receive the equivalent of a four day ration.  In the picture above you can see Ozzie talking about some of the different food areas.  Above each section is a chart that tells how many items a family with different amount of members can receive.  For example, in the non-edible section that Ozzie is currently pointing to a family of one receives three non-edible items, family of two receives four, family of three receives five items, etc.  

Volunteers stocking fresh produce at Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank

Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank collects food through donations and purchases food and non-essentials through monetary donations.  Currently over 80% of the Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank goes toward food acquisition, while the rest goes towards building costs.  The majority of the food they purchase from the Food Bank of Iowa since they are able to buy it for 14 cents a pound.  They also buy food and non-perishable items from local grocery stores.  Hy-Vee East donates their day old bread and baked good to the food bank, and they partner with Community Kitchen bi-weekly receiving collections from Target and Wal-Mart through their partnership with Feeding America.  In the end, Ozzie told us that the food bank simply couldn't exist without the generosity of North Iowans.  In 2013, Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank served 17,580 people.  At the end of November this year, the total was 19,533 and officials expect to serve at least 1,500 in December, creating a record year in the number of people served.

If you'd like some ideas on how to help your local food bank this holiday season, check out my Food Bank Guide.  How do you help your local food bank during the holidays?  Remember to Comment for a Cause!

Comments for a Cause - #NorthIowaBloggers Food Drive

It is November 1st which means it is time to talk about Comments for a Cause!  First thing to cover is my donation to the Iowa 4-H Foundation for the month of October.  Thank you for the 235 comments posted during the month, which results in a $117.50 donation.  It was great hearing so many 4-H stories during National 4-H Week, plus interacting with new and veteran readers through my "31 Days from a Tractor Seat" series.  Thank you so much for helping me make such a nice donation to help Iowa 4-Hers.

In the month of November I am excited to be joining up with my fellow bloggers in North Iowa to promote both the Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank and the Franklin County Food Pantry through a Food Drive.  We will be collecting donations of both food goods and donations that will be split between the two facilities.  I will also be donating $0.50 for every comment during the month towards the Food Drive campaign.

Food banks across the nation are in need of assistance all year long and what a better time to give to them then during the month where we remind ourselves what we are thankful for.  I am very thankful for everything I have in my life and I'm proud to help provide healthy, affordable and quality food as a farmer.

So how can you help?  If you would like to join in on the North Iowa Bloggers food drive we'd love have you join us.  You can email me at vplagge@gmail.com or contact Beth Ann at It's Just Life if you'd like to make a donation of any sort and we will follow up with you.  We all think it'd be great if this local food drive went viral!

If you would rather donate to your own local food pantry PLEASE do!  They are all in need of food and what better timing than with the holidays approaching.  Check out my Guide to Help your Local Food Bank for ideas, both traditional and non-traditional, to help you with your donation.

Also, to learn more about the North Iowa Bloggers, check out our new Facebook page!

Have you participated in any food drives in the past?  If you donate this month to your local food bank please let me know.  The North Iowa Bloggers would love to keep track of the amount of food and dollars raised not only for our food drive, but for food banks across the world.  Remember to Comment for a Cause!