Eliminate 68
The Salvation Army Indiana Division teamed up with local lawmakers for an important cause, to raise awareness about childhood hunger and to serve Hoosier families suffering from food insecurity.
The initiative, titled Eliminate 68 refers to the number of hours during the week when a child is not at school and doesn’t have access to school-provided meals. For too many children in Indiana, these 68 hours between school lunch on Friday and breakfast on Monday morning represent time when they do not know where their next meal will come from. With a reported 1 in 5 Indiana children suffering from food insecurity, many children rely on school lunches as the only stable access they have to a meal each day.
For months, The Indiana House of Representatives collected donations of new and gently used backpacks, as well as non-perishable food items for this initiative. The collection was a success with over 5,000 food items collected and 200 backpacks. The date of March 6 was selected to get the backs filled and into the hands of children in need. The Salvation Army and lawmakers met at the Indiana State House and filled each of the donated backpacks with the collected food items, such as peanut butter, cereal, canned fruit, etc. Salvation Army Corps Officers from around the state were matched up with their representative to discuss the unique needs and opportunities in their area as they filled the backpacks to the brim. When the event ended, the Corps Officers traveled back to their homes around Indiana, bringing with them the backpacks for schools in their communities.
“Every day The Salvation Army provides hope to families,” said Divisional Commander of the Salvation Army in Indiana Major Bob Webster. “We were excited to work with our state legislators to provide hope in the form of a backpack filled with food, ensuring that a child will not have to wait 68 hours for their next meal.”
With this partnership, we took one more step toward fighting childhood hunger. Together, we want to make sure that no child has to worry about when they will get to eat next.
Find more photos from this event on our Flickr page.