By: Isabelle LaPapa

Faces of Blackford County residents brighten at the sight of volunteers laughing, joking, and loading up cars at the Second Harvest tailgate. 

On the first and third Thursdays of the month, Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana brings donated groceries to Blackford County through their mobile distribution initiatives or “tailgates.” A variety of products like fruits, nuts, and milk are stacked into backseats and trunks by energetic volunteers. 

According to Second Harvest driver Ralph Whysong, part of the job is entertaining locals with their shenanigans while they wait in line. 

“It’s really fun…if we’re not having fun, we’re doing the wrong thing,” Whysong said. 

It’s 10 a.m. on a Thursday morning, and a semi sits in the center of the 4-H fairgrounds parking lot in Hartford City, surrounded by volunteers in neon vests. Cars wrap around the side streets leading through the fairgrounds. Plastic placards on their windshields let volunteers know the desired amount of groceries: large, medium, and small. 

As the cars roll through the line, volunteers transfer crates full of food into their open trunks, backseats, and truck beds. Anyone from any background is welcome to pick up food for themselves, their family, and their neighbors. 

“If people say they need food, they do,” said Sunni Matters, Chief Impact Officer at Second Harvest Food Banks. 

Second Harvest provides food to eight counties in East Central Indiana: Blackford, Delaware, Grant, Henry, Jay, Madison, Randolph, and Wabash. 

Each month, Second Harvest trucks deliver roughly 15,000 lbs of food to each county through their tailgates. Counties with larger populations like Delaware and Madison can receive up to 30,000 lbs. In the span of two hours, volunteers count anywhere from 200 to 400 cars coming through the tailgate line. 

In Blackford County, the 4-H fairground in Hartford City serves as the home base for the twice-monthly tailgate in Blackford County most of the year. When the fairgrounds are in use during the summer, the tailgate switches locations to First Church of Nazarene in Montpelier.

For every county, Second Harvest’s mission is to not only solve the immediate hunger need, but to fight food insecurity at its source. 

“That’s the ultimate goal…Working ourselves out of a job,” Matters said.

In addition to their tailgate events, the food bank’s day-to-day operations for addressing immediate and future needs demonstrate their commitment to their motto, “Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.”

Second Harvest works with the community to teach about food insecurity and poverty. Additionally, they offer resources for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) application assistance.

According to Matters, these resources help to “break through the generational cycles and help families and the children of those families to see a different future for themselves.”

The generational cycle can also be a powerful force for good. Volunteers ages 12 to 70+ years old allow the tailgates to continuously impact counties like Blackford. 

Regular community members help by breathing life into the tailgates with their energy and banter with locals and neighbors in line. Infrequent volunteers also play a foundational role in the organization by bringing in new faces and eager helping hands. Even younger children are able to find a place at the tailgate by watching their parents or older family members help out, demonstrating the beauty of helping neighbors and building community. 

“We couldn’t do it without the volunteers,” Whysong said. 

Cars drive away from the fairgrounds with more than cardboard boxes of groceries; they leave with hope and friendly faces in the rearview. 

After the last vehicle leaves the tailgate, volunteers find fulfillment in the fruits of their labor as they gather up the empty pallets previously containing thousands of pounds of food now in the kitchens and pantries of their community. 

“It feeds my soul,” Whysong said. “To see the look of gratitude on these people’s faces, it just feeds my soul.”

Second Harvest is a partner food bank of Feeding America. It serves the counties of East Central Indiana by providing hunger relief and combating food insecurity. For up-to-date times and locations of the next tailgate or open food banks, Second Harvest has developed an app for both Apple and Andriod users to aid in meeting immediate hunger needs. To access additional resources or learn more about Second Harvest and their mission, check out their website at https://curehunger.org/. To volunteer in Blackford County, visit https://www.givepulse.com/group/436633-SHFB-Blackford-County-Volunteers.