The River Bend Foodbank in Davenport has made significant progress in wiping out hunger in eastern Iowa and northwestern Illinois.
President and CEO Mike Miller says the foodbank distributed 7.3 million meals in 2014, and the following year, the board of directors set an ambitious goal of tripling that number in ten years.
"The original goal was to triple in ten years and we've doubled in four, so hopefully it won't take the full six to get there. But we'll keep pressing on until literally we put an end to hunger in our community."
From 7.3 million in 2014, they reached 15 million meals last year.
In the 23 counties served by the foodbank in the two states, there are an estimated 121,000 people considered hungry, including 40,000 children. Miller says that works out to one of every eight people overall, and one of every five children.
"Those people - their limited access to food inhibits their ability to work, to learn, go to school, or just be active enough to stay healthy. And those are the people we're trying to get food to."
Miller says credit for their progress in fighting hunger goes to his staff, now twice as big as it was in 2014, the donors of food and money, and to the volunteers at the foodbank and its partner agencies, now numbering more than 2,800.
