Illinois State University is partnering with State Farm to pack one million meals in one day for Illinois families facing food insecurity.
The event will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7, at ISU's CEFCU Arena and will require a total of 5,000 volunteers to successfully pull off.
State Farm Corporate Responsibility Manager Melissa Shrader and ISU Athletics Chief Operating Officer Leanna Bordner spoke to WGLT about how this event came to be and how it will work.
“When we were approached about this opportunity Dr. Jeri Beggs, our director of athletics, went to President Tarhule ... it didn’t take him very long at all to say, ‘We need to do this,’” Bordner said.
The meal the volunteers will be scooping and packing is jambalaya, comprised of beans, rice and various spices. The food will be heat-sealed after it’s packaged and will be distributed across the state.
“Jambalaya has a long shelf life,” Shrader said. “It can go a long way to feed a student, a community [or] a family that is facing food insecurity.”
The meals will be distributed by the Normal-based Midwest Food Bank throughout the state as needed. However, many of the meals will remain local, going to organizations like the School Street Food Pantry that specifically serves college students in Bloomington-Normal.
This event is not only for the community but is widely made up of volunteers from the community. Bordner said any ISU student-athletes who will not be competing during the time of the event will be in attendance, as well as members of other community fixtures, and athletes from nearby colleges, such as Bradley.
The event is the first Million Meal Pack for ISU. State Farm hosted its first in 2019 in collaboration with the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, who play at State Farm Arena.
“They’ve done this for about four or five years so we’ve got a chance to see it live and in action, and I thought, ‘This would be a great opportunity that we could do this right here in our very own community,” Shrader said.
