INDIANAPOLIS — An effort is underway to help address food insecurity in Indianapolis.
According to nonprofit Feeding America, it’s an issue that impacts more than 834,000 Hoosiers in Indiana, 239,000 of whom are children.
Now, ProAct Indy is working to help bring food to those who need it most.
In April of 2020, the organization received a $35,000 grant from the United Way of Central Indiana to renovate a 28 seat passenger bus into a mobile food pantry.
They work with local food banks to help take the extra supply into low income neighborhoods, eliminating barriers people often face when it comes to putting food on the table for their family.
“We know about one in seven Hoosiers go hungry and so they are food insecure. That's a lot of people that go hungry each and every day and there are children as well,” Derrin Slack, Founder and CEO of ProAct Indy said.
On Friday, they took the mobile pantry to a neighborhood on the city's west side near Hawthorne Park. This was their third time using the mobile pantry and so far they’ve been able to help around 250 families with it.
“The need is there. The community is reaching out to us. The neighbors are finding us,” Slack said.
Slack said he knows they are limited with the number of people they can help using this bus, but he hopes to expand this program in the future.
“Some families don’t know when the next time they are going to eat is, so that makes me feel that I'm doing the right thing, that this is truly my purpose and the purpose of our organization,” Slack added.
To learn more about ProAct Indy and their mobile food pantry, click here to visit their website or their Facebook page.
