We are partnering with the Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police. The FOP has an broad initiative called ‘Think Bigger’ that encompasses all aspects of how the police engage their communities. Within that initiative, they have reached out to Midwest Food Bank, Wheeler Mission, Salvation Army, and The Villages as part of their hunger and homeless campaign. They are looking for ways to engage retires and current officers in their community. We are helping them kick off this program with a press conference on the 26th, followed by a food distribution on the 30th. At that event, which we are billing as Bridging the SNAP Gap, we will distribute food boxes (identical to our disaster relief boxes) to 300 families who are experiencing a gap in the drop dates of their SNAP benefits due to the government shut down*. This event will be an opportunity for the FOP to serve their community in a new way, and the plan is for this to be the first step as the officers and retirees begin to volunteer regularly inside our partner food pantries on their beats. It will be a great picture of the police, Midwest Food Bank, and the pantries working together to engage our neighbors.
*side note if you need it for any marketing or blog or anything, call me, Debbie and I just spoke with someone in the Indianapolis SNAP office to get the exact scoop on when benefits were and will be loaded onto EBT cards.
