Like any company, city, state, church, or charity, Feeding Team has a history. This month we are telling our story. How did the Feeding Team come to be?
Jump in the way-back time machine with me for a few minutes and let’s head back to 1986. Gas cost 93 cents a gallon on average, eggs were 87 cents a dozen, the median price of a home was about $76,000, Ronald Reagan was our president, and reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded in a devastating accident. Meanwhile, living in a three-bedroom ranch home in the southern tip of Noblesville, Ind., was a young married couple raising two daughters.
Like most of our contemporaries, these were the beginnings of our salad days. With seven years of wedded bliss behind us we had the world by the tail – until we didn’t. You see, what we didn’t know was that the world can be a very tough place when you are struggling to make a life … when you’re struggling to make a living.
Both of us worked. We did not know anything about public assistance, food pantries, trustees, or for that matter what to do when everything we did was not enough. What we knew in our self-reliance was that when something went bump in the night, we would simply power through. Like most people in their 20s in the 1980s, we took things day by day. Life was a great blessing and when times got tough, we’d get tougher – until effort wasn’t enough.
Looking back on it now, we didn’t realize how close to the line we were living. What we experienced, like many families, was a struggle to make ends meet when something didn’t go according to plan. We lived one dentist bill, one blown tire, one unexpected annual premium away from not knowing how we’d feed ourselves and our two, later three, daughters.
We were what is today referred to as a gap family. These are our neighbors who make too much money to qualify for any form of public assistance, BUT who don’t make enough money to not become food insecure when something goes wrong.
In short, there were more meals than I’d like to admit that featured Kroger cost-cutter beef stew as the entrée and a baked potato as the side dish.
During the next three-plus decades, supporting food charities was always at the front of the list of our charity support. As we opened our first business in 1993, donating to support families who were food-challenged was part of our annual mission. For years, along with our employees, we would support Shepherd Community Center on the Near East Side of Indianapolis with donations for food, volunteer hours preparing and serving meals, and doing what we could to support families each holiday season with meals.
Jump back in the time machine and journey ahead with me to 2019. These same two formerly food-challenged parents are praying through what they are to do headed into 2020 and cannot escape the embedded need to do something in their local area.
After living in Hamilton County for 33 years, we knew what was supposed to happen. We knew we were to turn our attention to our local neighbors here in Hamilton County. But what to do?
Enter Jay Height, the Executive Director of Shepherd Community Center. Understanding where we were being led to put the effort, he tells us about these outdoor pantries modeled after the small book lending libraries. He sent us an article from the Courier Journal in Louisville, Ky.: an article that describes in detail how the Nazarene church has 40 of these outdoor, no-questions-asked food pantries deployed all around Bullitt County, Ky. Two phone calls later and we have the materials list and plans in our email. Boom, The Feeding Team is born.
Taking that model, we added our business as a funding source and launched the first six pantries in the middle of the pandemic. All we had to give neighbors was Gatorade and microwave popcorn. It didn’t matter. We were beginning, and hungry neighbors were starting to get food that they desperately needed. Today, 58 pantries are in service with a plan to launch another dozen.
Now you know our story. Now you know where Feeding Team came from. If you feel led to help, please join us in our mission to provide meals to hungry neighbors.
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With over 47,000 food-challenged neighbors in Hamilton County, FeedingTeam.org is a registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that provides outdoor 24/7/365 no-questions-asked free food pantries throughout the county.
The pantries exist to meet the food insecurity needs of gap families, neighbors who may not qualify for public assistance and could use a few meals before payday. The pantries serve as many food-challenged neighbors as possible, and our hearts are with those who, like my family, could not always make ends meet.
Thank you for supporting the pantries. We love serving with so many neighbors across Hamilton County. In future columns, we will share more stories about how your generosity served neighbors in times of need. The face of hunger in Hamilton County is not what you may think.
In practical terms, this straightforward way to help neighbors is having real impact on lives, families, and our communities. Thank you. A few meals can change the course of a person’s life. A can of green beans means so much more when you have nothing to feed your kids.
Would you like to get involved? Volunteer opportunities are available. We are evaluating new pantry locations. If you think you have a potential location, please contact us.
Mark and Lisa Hall are the Founders of Feeding Team. They may be reached at lisa@feedingteam.org and mark@feedingteam.org or by calling (317) 832-1123.