Army of volunteers aim to make one million meals for food banks at annual event

Volunteers gathered Tuesday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse for the Million Meal Marathon, an annual event to help address food insecurity across the state.

Lines of meal prep stations littered the floor as volunteers prepared shelf stable meals bound for Gleaners Food Bank and Midwest Food Pantry. Workers prepared one of two meals — a rice and vegetable casserole and macaroni and cheese.

The event was hosted by Million Meal Movement.

Dan Hintz, founder and chairman of the organization, said they were expecting 3,000 volunteers to prepare anywhere from 500,000 to 1,000,000 individually packaged meals over the course of a single day.

A nutritionist from Gleaners consulted to ensure both meals would be nutritious, easy to make, and shelf stable.

"Feedback we get from our partners is that it's nice, especially with the rice soy meal, to have a shelf-stable source of protein," Hintz said. "Because protein, unless it's frozen or canned, the shelf life can be difficult to maintain."

The Million Meal Marathon was started 15 years ago and has had a number of high-profile sponsors over the years including Key Bank, Pacers Sport & Entertainment, and Peyton Manning.

A report from Feeding America shows one in seven people face hunger in Indiana — that's over one million Hoosiers.

The group says food from the Tuesday event should be on shelves in a matter of weeks.

Contact WFYI Digital Producer and Reporter Jeremy Reuben at jreuben@wfyi.org