Wyoming Hunger Initiative was launched in 2019 with two tenants in mind: one, to never reinvent the wheel and two, to be in all twenty-three Wyoming counties. There are grassroots efforts in every Wyoming county dedicated to reducing hunger and combating food insecurity. Instead, Wyoming Hunger Initiative aims to increase awareness and support for the work of local anti-hunger organizations statewide.
Through the relationships that have been developed across the state specific to food insecurity, Wyoming Hunger Initiative has identified partners in every community. Thanks to a grant from the Hughes Charitable Foundation, Wyoming Hunger Initiative was able to host its sixth and final Regional Summit in northern Wyoming recently to bring folks together who are working in this space.
The result? A whole lot of networking, sharing of resources, and collaboration that will lead northern Wyoming forward together while also producing realistic action items that are already underway.
The event kicked off with a volunteer recognition celebration where anti-hunger organizations in northern Wyoming nominated a volunteer from their organization to be recognized. Without the countless volunteers across the county, this work wouldn't be possible.
The following volunteers were recognized at this event:
"All Volunteers", Mannahouse Food Pantry
"All Volunteers", People for People Backpack Program
Ivy Asay, Worland Community Garden
Ginger Christie, Cody Cupboard
Shelley Deromedi, People for People Program
Greg Dimler, Food 4 Kids
Rita Fuller, Cody Senior Center
Jackie Hall, Backpack Blessings of Powell
Thomas Hitchcock, Cody Senior Center
Carol Johnston, Powell Senior Citizens Center
Wanda Little, Washakie County Senior Citizens Center
Linda Martin & Steve Ramsey, Lovell Community Food Pantry
Jack Pharaoh, Jack's Box
Cheryl, Chris, Heather, Jennifer, Natasha, and Nicole, Washakie County School District #1 Central Office Team
In addition to our volunteers, we have a wonderful network of folks who support Wyoming Hunger Initiative throughout the year. Beef for Backpacks launched in 2023 to support weekend food bag programs with so many people coming together to make the program possible. A key element of the program is the donation of beef and thus we honored the beef donors from the southeast region during the dinner as well. The following donors were recognized for their contribution to Beef for Backpacks:
Murraymere Farms - Valerie Murray
Earhart Farms, Sharon Earhart
J-9 Ranch, Tiffany Manion
TE Ranch, Curt Bales
We even took the opportunity to honor Wapiti Valley Meats and Paintrock Processing, our two Bighorn Basin Food from the Field processors. As we know, it takes everyone to be on board to fight food insecurity in Wyoming.
The last recognition component of the evening highlighted the partnership that Wyoming Hunger Initiative has with Admiral Beverage for their contributions to Food from the Field since the program launched in 2020. Greg Venable stepped up to provide refrigerated trucks for processors who needed additional cold storage during hunting season to be able to process donated game to Food from the Field. These programs are not successful without people like Greg and he was recognized for this contributions.
The next day we got down to business by taking a hard look at what we can do to improve and expand resources for anti-hunger organizations in southeast Wyoming. Together with twenty-five different agencies, we identified challenges, brainstormed solutions, and developed a list of realistic action items.
The following anti-hunger organizations were involved with the fourth Wyoming Hunger Initiative Regional Summit in central Wyoming.
Backpack Blessings of Powell
Cent$ible Nutrition Porgram
Cody Cupboard
Cody Senior Center
Food Bank of Wyoming
Food 4 Kids
Jack’s Box
Laura Irwin Elementary Totes of Hope
Mannahouse Food Pantry
Meeteetse Cupboard
People for People Program
People for People Backpack Program
Powell Senior Center
South Big Horn Senior Citizens, Inc.
Washakie County Conservation District
Washakie County Food Bank
Washakie County School District #1
Washakie County Senior Citizens Center
Worland Community Garden
Wyoming Food Coalition
It is safe to say that this group is "all in" when it comes to fighting food insecurity in Wyoming. We look forward to the continued collaboration and the work that will take place in the coming year thanks to the passion and commitment of these organizations.
Lastly, Wyoming Hunger Initiative team members and regional directors traveled to be part of this event. The passion that you see here is what drives the work that Wyoming Hunger Initiative has done and continues to do. Thank you for joining us!
Photo credit: Karyn Triplett, Get Off The Grid Photography
Comments