State officials pack food for Tennessee’s five food banks

From:The Commercial Appeal

Credit: Richard Locker
Lawmakers and state officials pack food boxes for distribution to Tennessee's five food banks in Memphis, Knoxville, Nashville, Chattanooga and Tri-Cities last Wednesday in Nashville.

NASHVILLE — State legislators and staffers, members of Gov. Bill Haslam's Cabinet and the state Supreme Court, constitutional officers and other officials transformed the Capitol's War Memorial Auditorium into a giant food-packaging operation for Tennessee's five food banks last week.

The legislature's community service project packed 50,000 meals in 90 minutes Wednesday. The food boxes were transported to food banks in Memphis, Knoxville, Nashville, Chattanooga and the Tri-Cities for distribution to people in need. The officials and staffers donned aprons and hair nets for the project, lining up at dozens of tables on the floor of the historic auditorium to assemble individual food boxes.

The event was organized by Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville), who has been organizing similar food packaging events since his first in 2012 during a meeting of the Southern Legislative Conference in Memphis. That event and several since were in partnership with Outreach Inc., an Iowa-based non-profit founded by Floyd Hammer and his wife, Kathy Hamilton. Its mission is to help provide safe water, food, medical care and education to those in need in the U.S. and internationally.

"Hunger in Tennessee — hunger in America, but hunger in Tennessee and hunger in Shelby County — is inexcusable," Norris said. "It's a major problem. It's over 20 percent in Shelby County alone. They call it food insecurity, but I don't mince words: It's hunger. We can't abide that in Tennessee, and so we're trying to help people help themselves."

Hammer and his wife met Norris through a mutual friend and helped organize the first food packaging at the meeting of southern state legislators at The Peabody four years ago. "Legislators don't always know what the hunger situation is in their states. This is a way to tell people we've got a problem," Hammer said at the Nashville event.

Directors of food banks statewide who were able to travel during last week's winter weather participated.

Memphis Food Bank Executive Director Estella Mayhew Greer said the event is "not only important for us to receive the food to provide those we are serving in Tennessee but this is an educational process as well. It creates awareness among our legislators of the need throughout the state of Tennessee about the hunger problem."

She and her four colleagues from across the state will also be trying to persuade the General Assembly to increase the annual grants it makes to the food banks. Norris said that will be a priority.

"Each year we have provided funding to the five food banks. It's gone down over time. It's never enough. So it's a worthy cause," he said.

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