Food Bank ramps up ‘love’ donations

Anis Shakirah Mohd Muslimin, [email protected]

February 4, 2016

Alex Crider/The Daily Iowan Sarah Witry organizes food in the Crisis Center Food Bank on Tuesday. Witry says every person who is affected by the Crisis Center makes her job worthwhile.

February is not only the month of acknowledging love for that special someone, it is also the month of loving those in need.

The Crisis Center of Johnson County officially launched “Spread the Love” on Monday — a one-month campaign to increase donations of peanut butter and jelly to the organization’s Food Bank, said Jay Capron, the communications coordinator at the Crisis Center.

“If you have a can of tuna, and you open it up, it’s good for one serving, but for peanut butter, you can make that last,” he said. “It’s a very important protein for the families in our community, and a lot of them depend on this as their sole protein to feed their families.”

He said the community could get involved in the campaign either by dropping off peanut butter and jelly at 1121 Gilbert Court or by starting their own drive.

“People have been thinking that the nonprofits are on a holiday and there is sort of a lull after the New Year’s started,” Capron said. “But the demand stays around, and we try to find creative ways to help fill the food banks.”

He said he believes there is a food crisis in Johnson County, and it is linked to the high cost of housing. People are forced into spending their income on housing and less is left over for food.

Capron said the Crisis Center will conduct more drives in the coming months. Among those will be the “Shower the Center” campaign in April and the “Fan Club” campaign, which aims to help people without air-conditioning stay cool in the scorching summer.

Amy Hospodarsky, the community relations manager at Iowa City MidWest One Bank said, bank officials got involved with the campaign as a way to give back to the Crisis Center and to increase awareness of its newly installed automatic teller machine at 500 S. Clinton St.

“For every transaction that happens on that machine in February, we’re donating a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly to the Crisis Center,” she said.

Kathryn Wallace, a volunteer at the center’s Food Bank, said she has been volunteering for the Crisis Center for almost four years.