March 29, 2024

Meals from the Heartland packages 25K at Iowa Speedway

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The entire operation took 60 people, scooping the nutrient-filled ingredients into bags, sealing them and placing them into boxes for shipment. It was a team effort.

It fell to everyone, young and old, famous and obscure, to do their part to help combat hunger.

Volunteers from Iowa Corn, Casey’s General Store and even a NASCAR driver teamed up Tuesday at Iowa Speedway to combat hunger both in Iowa and around the world with Meals from the Heartland, one bag of rice at a time.

NASCAR driver Daniel Hemric said he volunteered at the packaging event because it is the right thing to do.

“Thankfully, Iowa Speedway and NASCAR allowed me to come up here and participate in Meals for the Heartland and bag over 25,000 meals today, so that’s pretty incredible to hear how they are getting distributed, how many countries it’s going to affect, how many families it is going to affect,” Hemric said.

He said he has done similar events in the past, such as canned food drives, but this is the first time he has packaged the food and watched it ship out.

Hemric said the “coolest” part was to see how many volunteers arrived to help just to help the West Des Moines-based 501(c)3, an organization that has packaged more than 100 million meals for hungry Iowas and those around the world since 2008.

“I think they said with 10 people at each table, you can package 2,000 bags in an hour and there are six, seven, eight tables lined up, so we are putting a lot of food in a lot of boxes here,” Hemric said.

Hemric leads a strenuous life with a busy schedule, but there are certain events he makes sure to attend. He said he will definitely be back to do another packaging in the future.

“I think someone told me one out of every eight kids in the Iowa area are not properly fed or have enough nutrition in their life or are going to bed hungry and that’s not acceptable,” Hemric said. “To know we are able to make an impact here in (Newton), as well as in all the countries these meals will go to, that’s hard to wrap your mind around, to fathom the impact you are going to have.”

Meals from the Heartland Hunger Fight Manager Mike Frandsen likes to think outside of the box with packaging events. He has hosted them in malls before and at schools. Hosting an event at Iowa Speedway was something on his mind for a while.

“I knew if we got a driver in, fans would be able to meet the driver. I am glad we work so hard at it to make it work,” Frandsen said.

The nonprofit’s goal is to package 21 million meals this year and, according to Frandsen, they are currently sitting at 8.6 million for 2018.

The plan for the packaging event at the track was 25,000 meals and within 20 minutes of the starting, Frandsen said 5,200 meals had already been sealed.

“Each person has their job and it just goes smoothly after that first bag,” Frandsen said.

He said their rice and soy meal is sent around the world. On a daily basis, their meals feed between 18,000 and 22,000 people in countries like Haiti, Ghana, South Africa and the Philippines. They are also sent to those in need here in Iowa.

School lunch programs and orphanages are the distribution sights for the meals, and Frandsen said it makes sense since a hungry child cannot focus while in class wondering where the next meal will come from.

David Hyatt, president of Iowa Speedway, has been a busy man between running day-to-day operations, and race weekends but adding feeding the hungry is a good kind of busy.

“Not only did we get one of NASCAR’s top rising drivers, but it is for a great cause,” Hyatt said.

He said part of hosting races is getting drivers into the public eye, so he looked at the drivers he had available and the events which were coming and it lined up.

“You can’t find a better guy (Hemric) to do this,” Hyatt said. “Not only is he a good driver, but he is a good ambassador for the sport.”

Contact Samuel Nusbaum at 641-792-3121 ext. 6533 or snusbaum@newtondailynews.com