Agriculture agencies in Southeast Nebraska have teamed up to distribute literal tons of donated meat to local partners throughout the state this month. It's all to help fight food insecurity by delivering food to people who need it most.

Inspired by concerning conclusions from an examination into food insecurity in the state of Nebraska, leadership from the Cornhusker United Way and the Southeast Nebraska Collaborative have teamed up with local organizations across the state to deliver hundreds of boxes of pork fillets to people at risk of going hungry.

"We’re trying to help seniors and families in need prepare for winter. That’s the big picture," said Collena Laschanzky, executive director of the Cornhusker United Way. "Beyond that, we’re trying to work with local non-profits to help their population prepare for winter or to provide immediate needs for their food. Beyond that, we’re working with the Center for Rural Affairs to try to connect food producers with businesses and consumers in our local service areas – Triumph Foods is the donor of all of this amazing meat, and they fit right in with what we’re trying to do."

After a few hundred boxes were hauled in to Fairbury earlier this month, the next step was making sure that food got to people who need it most. 2,000 pounds of that pork was given to the Blue Rivers Area Agency on Aging, which serves more than 500 senior citizens across eight counties in Southeast Nebraska.

"This will be a great asset for us. The need for food in our rural areas is increasing, and so are the food costs. So anything we can get that is donated is a tremendous value to our organization," said Carmen McKeever, BRAAA's nutrition manager. "We are non-profit, and we run totally on donations and contributions. Many people are finding that this the only meal that they get is the one that is served by one of our senior centers."

A few dozen boxes of meat stayed in BRAAA's Fairbury base, while the rest were loaded up and taken to senior centers and similar locations stretching from Deshler to Falls City.

"Our goal is to keep people in their homes as long as possible," McKeever said. "We were part of this Southeast Nebraska Collaborative, and when it came up that we could get meat, we jumped on it. It took a little work on our part to find enough freezer space, but it will be of huge value to us because as we all know, meat is our most expensive protein, and where we’re at in the Midwest, our clients still appreciate having meat as their main protein."

What's a direct way to reach people in need in local communities? Tap into the churches, like Grace Lutheran Church in Fairbury: they were given 36 boxes to help them provide meals for members of their congregation that might not have many other sources of sustenance.

"The reason that I eagerly accepted the challenge here is because we’re called to love God and love our neighbor, and the best way to love God is to love our neighbor. And this is a way we do it, we help them when they’re in need," said Glen Emery, Grace Lutheran's pastor. "We don’t necessarily know that they have a need at the moment, but I know that they’ll be blessed when we bring them a pork loin or two and say hey, here you go, have a good meal! It gives you the good feeling that you were able to help people, even people that you don’t know."

The Collaborative identified organizations with both a regional impact - like BRAAA - and a hyper-local impact - like Grace Lutheran in Fairbury and other churches around the area - as groups that have the ability and the desire to help people in their community. Emery called his church just one arm of the operation. 

"I went and spoke with them, and they graciously said yes," said Angie Harroun, the Collaborative's compliance officer. "We’re really happy about dropping [the food] off to the local churches, so they can get it out to the senior citizens, to the low-income families, to the ones that, as they called it, are shut-ins, that can’t physically go out to places. They were very grateful that we contacted them."

"We obviously know people in the community, and even within our own congregation, that could use a little extra help. I’ll go down and look at our church roster, because I can identify people that would be blessed by this, and I know people in the community also," said Emery. "I’ve already got plans to take several boxes to another location and let them distribute it there. Some of our members will take them and give them to people they know."

And this entire food supply operation was inspired by a presentation delivered earlier this month by ag economist Ken Meter. A descendant of farmers in Otoe County, Meter's resume includes more than 100 food economy studies in 42 states, including statewide studies in Nebraska. In his presentation this month, which was facilitated collectively by the Collaborative, the United Way, and the Center for Rural Affairs, Meter concluded that most commodities reared in Southeast Nebraska are exported elsewhere, and that it's more profitable to rent out a farm than it is to actually farm it.

"A food system needs to build health, wealth, connection and capacity. The food system we’ve inherited is really failing on all four of these counts," Meter said in his presentation. "It’s building bad health outcomes at considerable public expense, it’s really not building wealth reliably for farmers, and instead of connecting us together through food the way we like to do with rituals and family celebrations, it’s actually disconnecting us, keeping us more separate. And I don’t think we have the capacity to handle food as well as we did. I would argue that if we want to build those four elements in Southeast Nebraska, we need to do some very serious work and roll up our sleeves to make some fairly major changes." 

Meter conceives of a food system as a cycle rather than a chain, which showcases how food waste products can be reused and recycled by farmers, completing the food production cycle that the farmers themselves began. In other words, keeping everything local would help a local agricultural economy survive.

"The best way to avoid food insecurity is for people to have food grown in their own community. If people have the skills, and they have neighbors that are growing food, it’s easier to see where food comes from, people are more likely to eat better because they know how difficult it is to raise food, and they also have a sense that there are people around them help them out, or they can help a farmer or gardener out, in exchange for some food," he concluded. "To me the real answer to food insecurity is to have people grow food in their own places, and that’s very difficult to do because we’ve given up so much land to development, and so many communities really do not have farmland set aside."

Those findings made it clear to the regional leaders that there was a potential food security crisis on their hands - one they could help soften.

"Obviously with us serving the Southeast Nebraska area, it made sense for us to start trying to help with food security there," said Emma Johnson, a central navigator with the Collaborative. "So I think that’s really where it started, and then from partners that we already had, partners who are serving the population that we wanted to reach, people in need, and we’ve also had some organizations reach out after hearing about this, so then we’ve already made some new connections as well, which has been really nice – serving a wider population than we maybe could have before."

"One of the takeaways was that our local food supply chain needs support, and strengthening," Laschanzky said. "The data that he presented...we were stymied, that there was such a shortage and there was such a need. We originally had planned several smaller projects – we didn’t originally plan to take 12,000 pounds – but because that need was so great, and the opportunity arose...and we needed to identify many places to be recipients. We’re now not having to work as hard on the distribution because so many organizations have reached out."

6,000 pounds of meat in total were distributed across Southeast Nebraska earlier this month, and another 6,000 are being taken this week to targets in counties like Saunders, Cass and Polk.