Why Second Harvest is My First Choice

    There is one word that describes what this world would be like without food: empty. It is a necessity to every species on the planet, fueling all the activities that we take place in daily. Food is one of the most important things we have on Earth, and healthy humans need to eat every day. Unfortunately, it is no secret that too many people don’t have access to daily meals. This is a problem that we should not be facing in a society as advanced as the one that we live in. There is more than enough food for everyone on this planet, yet for some reason people are still dying from starvation every single day.  

Ever since I was a child, my parents made sure I would never go to bed hungry. I never had to worry about if I was going to be able to eat on a given day, but I witnessed many people around me living in less fortunate conditions. Even in elementary school, there were kids I went to school with who were uncertain about their next meal. I hated watching my peers suffer from food uncertainties and knew something had to change. Some measures were put into place to combat this issue, such as free lunch and breakfast at public schools, but it didn’t fix the root problem at hand. Children were still going home to families that were not able to provide for them. Second Harvest is working to change this for good.  

Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee is a non-profit organization located in Maryville, Tennessee. They are currently serving 18 counties in East Tennessee and are looking to expand their operations as much as possible. Second Harvest distributes food through different programs in multiple ways, including a mobile food pantry. They accept help from the public through food donations, monetary donations, and volunteer work. As of now, over 700 local agencies are partnering with Second Harvest Food Bank. They are looking for all the help they can get to feed our community. 

One program Second Harvest runs that is particularly important to me is their school food pantries. They provide food to families at schools in 12 of the counties they operate in. This is an impressive number, but with the support of local communities they may be able to expand this to every county. One part of the work Second Harvest does in East Tennessee schools includes the Backpack Program. This provides children with a weekend’s worth of food to take home, ensuring they have nutritious meals even when school isn’t in session. These are the types of programs that need to keep being put into place to ensure that children no longer go hungry.  

I have done volunteer work with Second Harvest in the past and have seen their operations up close. They really take passion in what they’re working towards and are always looking for new people to help. If everyone does what they can to support the organization, together we will end world hunger.