According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap, over 887,000 Hoosiers regularly
struggle with food insecurity – 273,380 of whom are children. Founded in 2011, Hoosiers
Feeding the Hungry has paid to process 1.8 million pounds of meat – providing over 7.5 million
meals. Partnering with 85 meat processors statewide, the organization gives approximately
250,000 pounds of meat annually to an average of 450 hunger relief agencies throughout Indiana.
In 2020, Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry sent Wabash County over 4 tons of meat, 1,100
pounds of which were provided to Wabash County United Fund to distribute. County nonprofit
organizations which received meat from that latter amount included The ACCESS Youth Center,
Lagro Community Center, Wabash First United Methodist Church, Manchester Early Learning
Center, Laketon American Legion Post 402, and Wabash County Solid Waste Management
District. Modoc’s Market has helped to provide extra storage for frozen meat when necessary.
Wabash County Solid Waste Management District has been extremely helpful to provide pick-up
and receiving services as well as interim freezer storage. The staff members there have loaded
vehicles with hundreds of frozen packages for nonprofit organizations—often in only a few days.
This year, Wabash County United Fund is helping to directly support twenty nonprofit
agencies at work in our county and is also distributing state and federal grant funds to many
others. On April 28, 2021, Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry, currently a United Fund partner
agency, provided our county with one thousand pounds of sausage to be given directly to hungry
residents or used in community dinners which require no charge. This amount of meat provided
meals for over 4,000 county residents in need.
Wabash County United Fund contacted several county nonprofit organizations with
offers of meat; those that requested and received amounts from this gift from Hoosiers Feeding
the Hungry included Friends in Service Here [F.I.S.H.], (200#); First United Methodist Church
of Wabash, (300#); Laketon American Legion, Post #402, (100#); Lagro Community Center,
(100#); La Fontaine United Methodist Church, (50#); La Fontaine Learning Community, (90#);
The ACCESS Youth Center, (50#); Zion Lutheran Church in N. Manchester, (80#); and
Lighthouse Missions, (30#). Each of these organizations either offers the meat directly to needy
county residents to take home for use in their own home-prepared meals or uses the meat to help
prepare community meals offered gratis to hungry county residents.
Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry sent another full ton of meat—enough to feed 8,000
people—to Wabash County United Fund on June 16, 2021. Most of the 2,000 pounds of sausage
have been distributed to the following not for profits: Somerset Community Relocation &
Development Corporation, (60#); F.I.S.H. (1,000#); Laketon American Legion, Post 402 (200#);
Lagro Community Center, (100#); First United Methodist of Wabash, (300#); Learn More
Centers of North Manchester and Wabash, (25#); Wabash Friends Church, (50#); Wabash
County Solid Waste Management District, (50#); Wabash County United Fund, (30#). If your
nonprofit organization is in our county, could use sausage for a gratis community meal or for a
food pantry, and would be interested in some of the pounds still available or in receiving some
portion of the next gift of meat, please contact the Wabash County United Fund at 260-563-6726
or email Di Wion at di.wion@wcunitedfund.org.
Wabash County United Fund thanks Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry and their donors for
these substantial gifts given through nonprofit organizations to county residents.