The Food Bank of Siouxland is proud to announce the recipients for the annual Celebrate Our Friends event, highlighting individuals and organizations that have made an impact through service, donations, and dedication to fighting hunger throughout Siouxland. The five awards given were: Volunteer of the Year, Agencies of the Year – Metro & Rural, and two Linda Scheid Legacy Awards.
The Volunteer of the Year award goes to an individual or organization who has dedicated their time and resources and whose efforts have had a major effect on fighting hunger throughout our communities.
This year’s recipient is students from Sergeant Bluff-Luton High School. Through the school’s Transition Alliance Program, or TAP, these students join us in the warehouse almost every week during the school year to pack up boxes of bread for agencies to come pick up.
“We are so thankful to have the ability to volunteer and help our community while gaining some really great work experience. The kids really enjoy our time at the Food Bank and are so pleased with everything they have learned about helping others, learning new tasks, staying on task, and team work,” says Tara Wedel, teacher at Sergeant Bluff-Luton High School.
Agencies of the Year are awarded to two of our 100+ agencies – one from the Sioux City metro area, one from the greater Siouxland area – who go above and beyond in working with the Food Bank of Siouxland in distributing food.
This year’s Sioux City metro area award goes to Voices for Food. Since partnering with the Food Bank of Siouxland in 2016 they have ensured that neighbors across receive non-perishable food items as well as fresh produce from their Community Garden Program.
In 2024 alone, they have distributed nearly 32,000 pounds to an average of 80-100 households a month. Since 2020, they have given out over 433,000 meals to neighbors in need.
“In 10 years, we’ve been able to put over 100,000 lbs. of produce back into the food system in cooperation with all the food we get from the Food Bank. They’ve been an amazing partner for us and we’re super appreciative of all of their efforts to help us feed people in Dakota County,” says Brenda Sale, Voices for Food Project Coordinator. “The Voices for Food program has over 80 volunteers including: executive council members, drivers, pantry workers, gardeners, the health center and more from across the community that put in 2,000 hours of service to this program to reduce food insecurity.”
This year’s greater Siouxland area recipient is Community Basket – Ida County. Along with their on-site pantry location, Community Basket was one of the first Mobile Pantries to join the Food Bank’s program in 2012, the team out of Ida County bring thousands of pounds of food to a host location where access to nutritional food can be a challenge.
So far this year, Community Basket has been able to distribute 66,340 pounds of food to and average of 100 households a month. Since 2020, they have provided an estimated 453,000 meals to neighbors in need.
“Community Basket – Ida was started about 12 years ago as a church agency after an entity that gave out food closed and so the concept of a Mobile Pantry was started. Last month, we fed about 150 families and the need has been increasing and every month we rotate between the several communities we serve to have a mobile outreach,” says Kris Gunderson, Community Basket – Ida County Chairman. “We deal with the effects of being a food desert with 5 communities that have no grocery stores. On behalf of Community Basket, we are really grateful for this award and what the Food Bank does for us so that we can reach those people in our area.”
The Linda Scheid Legacy Award goes to an individual or organization that has supported the Food Bank of Siouxland over the course of many years in our mission of fighting hunger throughout our communities.
One of this year’s recipients is Curly’s Food. The Food Bank of Siouxland’s relationship with Curly’s started 10 years ago and since then, they have donated over 1 million pounds of Curly’s product to be distributed at our Mobile Pantries like Midtown, Community Basket and many more agencies.
They have been a consistent donor of protein which is the number one requested item from the Food Bank’s 100+ agencies.
“Thank to the Food Bank of Siouxland for recognizing Smithfield as one of the recipients for this award. We are committed to ensuring that no one goes hungry, especially our local neighbors in need and our communities where we operate. Through our monthly protein donation, we are honored to take a bite out of hunger in the greater Siouxland area to help support Iowans facing food insecurity,” Bobbie Bures, Smithfield – Curly’s representative says.
The other recipient is the Kind World Foundation. In 2010, Kind World started their contributions to the Food Bank of Siouxland with a generous gift of $10,000 to the BackPack Program. Donating nearly $40,000 from 2011 to 2018, they provided $25,000 in grant funding in 2019 for our Childhood Hunger Initiatives, which include our BackPack Program.
When the pandemic hit the community back in 2020, the Kind World Foundation also donated $30,000 for food purchasing, as we saw the need for food assistance skyrocket. Since 2010, the Kind World Foundation has donated over $254,000 to the Food Bank of Siouxland.
“This is super cool and very exciting. The food rescue program is our newest contribution and this is where we have a partnership with an Omaha organization. We’ve now partnered with the Food Bank to have conversations on how to do this and how complicated this is to try to rescue food that would just get thrown away. So this is preparing fresh food like from a restaurant, or banquet, or wedding, or grocery store. We really appreciate this award, I want to thank everybody and I’m truly happy to be here today and hope to be able to feed more people,” says Marcia Waitt, Executive Director for the Kind World Foundation.
The Food Bank of Siouxland is so grateful to all who have joined in our mission of fighting hunger. Thanks to dedicated volunteers, donors, and supporters, we are able to make an impact on countless neighbors facing food insecurity.
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