If you can swing it, 'Share Lunch Money' for a good cause

By James Edward Mills

Organizations that feed the hungry are working double-time these days to keep food pantry shelves stocked as demand for their services increases.

"This is an especially hard time," said Bob Mohelnitzky, president and CEO of Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin. "Right now we’re finding ourselves at historic levels of poverty with so many layoffs and foreclosures. Two years ago, poverty was growing at an all time rate and that was before the recession."

But area businesses are banding together to help through an organized effort dubbed "Share Lunch Money."

The charitable program was created by Madison advertising firm Glowac+Harris, 330 South Whitney Way. By pooling the efforts of several local companies, the agency aims to raise about $75,000 through the month of October, with proceeds being donated to Second Harvest Foodbank and the Community Action Coalition. The money will provide grocery assistance for needy families in Dane County and surrounding communities.

Glowac+Harris president Wayne Harris hopes those with the means to do so will share a small portion of what they have. "If you look at donating $20 a month, there are 20 work days in a month. So it’s shaving a buck a day off your lunch," Harris said. "That’s not a lot to ask. That’s $1 a day that you can share with someone else."

Other local businesses involved in the effort include Culver’s Restaurant, RSM McGladrey, Suttle-Straus, 94.9 WOLX radio and Park Bank. With displays and signs throughout Madison at a number of locations, this fundraising initiative gives people the opportunity to donate a little to make a big difference in the lives of those less fortunate.

"I hope that rest of our citizenry, the ones who are doing OK, see the importance in this," Harris said. "This is going to mean food in the stomachs of people who aren’t going to have access to it. That’s especially true when it comes to kids. They’re our future."

Figures for Wisconsin unemployment put out in January by the Office of Economic Advisors showed a rate of 7.6 percent. The city of Janesville was hardest hit with 13.1 percent looking for work. Mohelnitzky at Second Harvest said unemployed adults with small children are most deeply affected when it comes to food security.

"Kids are only 25 percent of the regular population," he said. "But they are 40 percent of the population of those that go hungry."

Culver’s display gets noticed

It’s around lunchtime at Culver’s Restaurant, 2102 Beltline Highway near Todd Drive in Madison. A girls’ sports team spills out onto the parking lot from a chartered bus in a giggling wave of swishing skirts in black and gold. They hustle inside to place their orders. "We’re from Cuba City High School," says chaperone and history teacher Steve Graber "That’s about 40 miles south of Madison."

The students line up for burger, fries, sodas, shakes and sundaes. Their teacher picks up the tab so few, if any, seem to notice the display by the register. Surrounded by mocked-up Culver’s take-out bags is a basket full of food.

Not what you’d expect to find at a burger joint, the basket contains the fare typical of a sack lunch prepared at home: bananas, apples, individual packets of pureed fruit, baby carrots wrapped in plastic, snack-sized bags of pretzels, all items that might inspire thoughts of the afternoon meal. It’s an image of plenty, a still life of food security. A small placard beside the display makes a humble plea. "Share lunch money."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Graber says. "These days I think a lot of people need help making ends meet. A donation of food could make their lives at least a little easier."

Another customer at the restaurant had a similar reaction when seeing the display. Don Adams — an account representative for Standard Register, a document services provider for the health-care, financial and manufacturing industries based in Chicago — stopped into Culver’s for lunch while visiting customers in Madison.

"Everyone’s got to eat," Adams said. "I guess if you can afford to share some of what you have, it can go to help those who need it."

$1 = 7 pounds of food

Chris Brockel, the food and gardens division manager for the Community Action Coalition, said that when invested in proactive food purchasing, a dollar can go a long way toward feeding the hungry.

"Food purchasing is a much more effective way of procuring food than food drives," Brockel said. "When someone donates money to us, we can work with wholesalers who specialize in the secondary market or nonprofit organizations like ourselves and offer really good prices. For every dollar we take in we can deliver as much as seven pounds of food."

Though direct donations of canned goods or prepackaged meals are a common practice in most food drives, Brockel said the pickup and distribution of these items are labor intensive and cost prohibitive. He suggests that individuals and institutions contribute money instead.

"We’d actually have to go out and collect all those barrels of food. That takes a lot of effort," he said. "And those items are usually purchased by consumers at retail prices. We can save a lot more money and buy a lot more food by purchasing it wholesale."

Donations to Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin and/or the Community Action Coalition can be made online at www.sharelunchmoney.com.

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