Second Harvest’s new MilitaryShare program, launched in January, provides dry goods, fresh produce, dairy, and lean meat to veteran, reserve, and active duty military members and their families at sites across Lehigh, Northampton, and Monroe counties. It is a true veterans-helping-veterans initiative; many of the boxes are packed by volunteers from military and veteran organizations.
One in every five families who use a food pantry within the Feeding America network has a veteran in the home.
“There are active service members and more than 65,000 veterans in Second Harvest’s six-county region, and at times some of those men, women and their families fall on hard times,” says Rick Hamp, Special Assistant to the Deputy Adjutant General for Veterans Affairs, Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. “Thanks to MilitaryShare, veterans and service members in need who defended our freedoms so that the rest of us can live and eat without worry, can do the same in their households.”
We’re just starting, and as the program grows, we’ll continue to expand the sites where MilitaryShare is available.