ROTARY CLUB NEWS RELEASE
The Rotary Club of Los Alamos is excited to announce that it will hold its fourth annual Meals of Hope food repackaging event on Saturday, Nov. 11 at The Crossroads Bible Church.
We are appealing to the community to come and join us and help us pack an estimated 35,000 meals for those who are food insecure. Signup is easy using the link below:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080D4AA8A928AAFB6-45020037-rotary
During the event, we will pack thousands of bags of food to be donated to The Food Depot in Santa Fe, who in turn will distribute the meals, six servings per bag, to food pantries in Northern New Mexico, including Los Alamos Cares.
Hunger in New Mexico is always a critical issue. The US Department of Agriculture reports that most of New Mexico qualifies as a food desert, defined as a large area without access to affordable, healthy nourishment. According to recent data from The Food Depot, one in every eight people In New Mexico suffers from food insecurity and that includes one of every five children. In a study last year, New Mexico Voices for Children found that New Mexico ranks highest in the U.S. in overall food insecurity and third highest in food insecurity for children. This statistic needs to change!
We are especially grateful to Crossroads Bible Church, 97 East Rd., whose administrators Kirk Christensen and Victor Rutherford generously arranged for us to use their large basement workspace. The church has opened its doors to this project each year since 2020.
The Rotary Club members, the Los Alamos High School Interact Club, Rotary’s teen service organization, will be packing this Saturday. We encourage you, our community to sign up to help alleviate hunger among our neighbors in Northern New Mexico. Join our team spirit!
To start at the beginning, the dry food in bulk has been purchased from Meals of Hope (MOH), a Florida-based food-packing organization that “inspires and empowers communities to come together to end hunger,” and will be delivered on November 9th. Setup for the event is November 10th. After packaging on November 11th, the pallets of packaged food will be picked up by The Food Depot on the following Monday. The individual bags, each containing servings for six individuals, will then be distributed to Northern New Mexico food pantries, including Native American Pueblos throughout New Mexico.
As in years past, this project has been funded by generous donations from our community’s annual support. For those of who are unable to attend, but would like to support the work of the Rotary Club of Los Alamos, we encourage you to make a tax-deductible donation to Los Alamos Rotary 1312, a 501(c)3 non-profit foundation, at PO Box 986, Los Alamos, NM, 87544. Please write Meals of Hope in the memo line.
We are often so isolated from all the people in town who really do need this help. So, we Rotarians are grateful that you from Los Alamos, White Rock, and Santa Fe, might consider joining us to alleviate the hunger that touches the lives of so many of our most vulnerable neighbors in Northern New Mexico.
For information about the Rotary Club of Los Alamos, please contact Club President Tim Bullock, bullocklaw@gmail.com. “The mission of Rotary is to provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, good will, and peace through our fellowship of business, professional and community leaders.”