WEST MILWAUKEE — “Seeing exactly what hunger in our neighborhoods meant, that’s why we come to work every day," said Johnathan Hansen, chief strategy officer for Hunger Task Force.
For decades, Hunger Task Force has worked to feed thousands of people across the Milwaukee area, giving them direct access to fresh and nutritious food.
“We maintain those one-on-one relationships with all the programs that we serve so that we can best support the community in those very specific ways,” Hansen said.
TMJ4 got the chance to pull back the curtain for an exclusive look at their 120,000-square-foot warehouse in West Milwaukee and see exactly where your donations go.
“It stores the food that we purchase with donor dollars, it stores the food that we administer on behalf of the USDA, as well as the fresh fruits and vegetables that we grow at our farm,” Hansen said.
One of the organizations that benefit directly from Hunger Task Force's efforts is the Milwaukee Christian Center.
“We're making sure that we have all the resources available to help individuals, even if they don't meet a program that we specifically provide to make sure that we can connect them with the correct ones,” said Andrea Grittner, development and communications director at the Milwaukee Christian Center.
Located on the city's south side, their emergency food pantry relies on one of Hunger Task Force's key tools: choice.
Rather than send a generic group of donations, HTF allows its partners to choose exactly what their clients want.
“The ability to have choice is really important to us because it provides all of our participants with the feeling of dignity, equality and autonomy,” Grittner said.
For those team members behind the scenes, they said seeing their work in action pushes them to continue.
“Hunger is everywhere and it could be your next-door neighbor, it could be a family member that you don’t realize," Hansen said. "That is why we do what we do and that’s why we’ll always be here doing it.”
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