Why "Make Hunger History" is Important and What You Can Do About It

Hunger has always been important to me and my wife Reema. We are both fortunate that we have never had to worry about putting food on the table but around us, there are people everywhere in the world that have daily food insecurity because of many reasons.

For us, hunger is personal because firstly, we grew up in India where hunger is a fact of life for millions of people. India is making great strides as a country and compared to 50 or even 20 years back, there are a lot less people facing daily hunger, but the figure is still in the hundreds of millions.

When we moved to Minnesota over 13 years back, Reema was getting (re)certified as a Psychotherapist and she was doing a lot of home visits, and we were both shocked at the level of hunger that was there in a relatively prosperous state like Minnesota. With a population of 5.7M, there were over 7.5M visits to food banks in Minnesota in 2023. This means that wherever you are in Minnesota, there is someone making a visit to a food bank within a few miles of you.

I came to Minnesota to join Honeywell here. In my first week at Honeywell, I was asked by a few colleagues to join a volunteer event at a facility that was in the next building to Honeywell in Golden Valley, MN, and that was my introduction to Second Harvest Heartland (SHH). My family and I have volunteered to pack food at the facility a number of times over the years, and I grew to admire the work that they were doing. They were having a significant impact. Second Harvest Heartland is a member of a nationwide network of foodbanks called Feeding America that work together closely on their projects, share best practices and collaborate.

On an annual basis, SHH distributes 128 million meals, serves 813,000 people and rescues 41 million pounds of grocery store food.

So, earlier this year, when the opportunity came up to join the amazing group of people on the SHH Board of Directors, I was very excited to take it. This is my way of giving back, of understanding the hunger problem better, and to see what we can do to resolve the problem.

Allison O'Toole and the leadership team at SHH have been working on a moonshot initiative called "Make Hunger History" where they want to cut hunger in Minnesota in half by 2030. They are committed to a comprehensive campaign to raise $200M+ for this goal. I am excited to support the team as they make progress towards this lofty goal.

This evening, on Saturday 26th October, they are organizing their annual Dish Gala and Fundraiser in Minneapolis to raise awareness, celebrate the team's achievements and fuel the mission of eliminating food insecurity. I am honored to be a part of this event and I look forward to an inspiring evening.

So, what can you do to get involved? You can learn more about hunger wherever you are and some of the challenges that make solving this problem difficult and you can find a way to to contribute your time, treasure or talents to this cause. There are many ways to give.

See you on the road!

Ashis