WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Ill. (KFVS) – Imagine not having enough food to feed your family–it’s a reality for folks in every community across the United States, including here in the Heartland.

A summit held Tuesday at John A. Logan College is working to end food insecurity in the area.

Numbers from Feeding America show food insecurity affects approximately 13,000 children across southern Illinois.

Jennifer Paulson is working to change that by supplying food and teaching sustainable farming methods through the non-profit Food Works.

”That can look like a lot of things: workshops for farmers, farmers markets, food hubs, and then the snap and link program at farmers markets across southern Illinois,” Paulson said.

She told us the fourth annual Southern Illinois Food Security Summit helps bring organizations and non-profits together to network and ensure crucial needs are met as the hunger fight continues.

”It really takes all these groups working together and coming at it from different angles,” she said.

Food Works recently launched a new mobile farmers market to help families in southern Illinois communities that don’t have easy access to a grocery store.

”It essentially is a farmers market on wheels. So all the food groups you expect to see at a farmers market–fresh produce, local meat, dairy, baked goods, all those things,” Paulson said. “And this vehicle lets us take that market on the road to the communities that need it.”

Elizabeth Deruntz, the deputy director of Food Works, said this is a great way to come up with new ideas to fight hunger in the heartland.

”It’s wonderful to meet with people who are like-minded about sourcing food and getting food to more food to people in our region. It is a regional struggle and we need to find new and interesting ways to work together,” she said.

For more information on how you can help fight hunger in southern Illinois, visit https://www.feedsi.org/.

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