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Pictured above, Delaney Haley, Steve and Kevin Ricker stand with jugs of donated milk to the Helping Hands Community Foundation. Photo/submitted.
To help get more milk and dairy foods to those who need it, local dairy farmers helped provide a refrigerated cooler to Helping Hands Community Foundation and Food Pantry in Chandler.
A one-time donation of whole milk was also made to provide nutritious dairy to the community.
Before receiving the cooler, the pantry at Helping Hands had minimal space to store milk and families had to pick it up during a designated time frame.
According to Helping Hands co-founder Sabra Denson, having the cooler will help provide families with more milk and dairy foods each week.
“It makes a huge difference to provide milk and dairy because it meets nutritional needs for kids who may not have it otherwise,” Denson said.
Local dairy farmers Steve and Kevin Rickner assisted with the donation of whole milk to Helping Hands.
“We want our neighbors have proper nutrition and understand the benefits of dairy products,” Steve Rickner said. “Overall, we just want to help make sure no one goes hungry.”
Dairy farmers have a long history of providing nutrition and fighting hunger within their local communities.
Milk is one of the most requested but least donated items to food banks, and the lack of refrigerated storage makes it difficult for food pantries to provide it.
This need has also increased, with 17 million more Americans now relying on the same network of food banks and pantries due to the economic effects of COVID-19.
The partnership between Feeding America and the dairy community has increased the availability of dairy foods in food banks nationwide by 56 percent since 2016.