Hunger Free: The Hunger Coalition works on addressing the root causes of hunger

BELLEVUE, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The Hunger Coalition in Bellevue works to get to the root cause of hunger.

The Hunger Coalition provides many different resources to the community, but they are all centered around one problem, hunger.

“We are a full community food center, so we try to address hunger in Blaine County in a multi-dimensional way,” said Kris McMahon, the communications manager for The Hunger Coalition.

Through their Bloom Community Food Center, their community kitchen and café, their year-round heated green houses and their food pantry, plus their Bloom Food Truck and library, they are able to build a community through healthy food, recognizing that there is more to the issue than just needing a food box.

“Kind of bring people together to address the root causes of hunger, that could be getting out to vote for folks, that could be addressing the affordable housing crisis in our community, addressing barriers to a quality education, so many things that you know might bring folks to us in the first place, we really want to build a movement where people are addressing those root causes together and ultimately end hunger for good,” said McMahon.

McMahon says they currently are serving double the amount of people than they were before the pandemic.

During the height of the pandemic, they were seeing quadruple the amount than before the pandemic.

Right now, they see about 300 families a week.

“Often times the tradition trends is that we don’t see as many folks in the summer because of seasonal summer employment, but then come slack season and the holidays the need increases, so while we are happy to see a dip, we are anticipating an increase in folks,” said McMahon.

They couldn’t do the work they do without volunteers and community support, who all believe in their mission of ending hunger, they are always welcoming of more volunteers and donations.

“Actually, there are folks out in the greenhouse right now helping us harvest a really beautiful bounty of fresh produce and then it’s extra awesome because people can bring that produce that is grown right there in sight and bring it into the kitchen,” said McMahon.

In partnership with Fred Meyer, Hunger Free is working to support local Idaho Food Banks during the month of September.

More information can be found at Kroger’s Zero Hunger | Zero Waste website.

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