And our goal is to put highly nutritious, cost-effective meals into the food ecosystem quickly. Hey, this is just about helping close that gap. There's not anything that you can find this nutritious for 40 cents. Who? What led you to take so many different opportunities in the social impact sector. From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today.
I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. All right, folks. Mother's Day is around the corner and I'm going to help you get prepared. Ditch the Amazon or Target candle and get mom something from Warm Glow Candle Company. They're based out in Centerville, Indiana, and they make some of the best candles I have ever smelled. They have made my house smell unreal.
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I know you're going to get your mom a candle for Mother's Day. Now you can do that and support an awesome who's your business in the process. Head to warmlow. com to check out all their amazing scents. Now, let's get back to the episode. Today, I'm joined by Nick Reich, a passionate leader with over 20 years of experience in the social impact and innovation space.
He is the executive director of Packaway Hunger where he leverages holistic coaching and nonprofit leadership to drive community transformation. Today we're going to be talking about uh some of his Indiana beginnings. We were just talking about basketball before we got on the on the air today. We're talk about career and community and how they're building a sustainable Indiana. Welcome to Get In, Nick. Thank you, Nate.
I appreciate it. Uh we were just talking about what? Jabbron. Jabbron Graves. Yeah. Every time I get on now, it's been, you know, 15 years and everybody still wants to talk about Jabbron Graves.
So, so Nick was a coach at Ind Indianapolis Metropolitan High School to win the regional finals. Jabbron Graves hit a threequarter shot buzzer beater. One second left and it made it on Sports Center. It did make it on Sports Center. Yeah. So, uh you know, with with any sport, with anything, you've got to have uh a lot of talent.
You got to have a lot of luck. So, a lot of luck that year. Exact. Hey, sometimes better be lucky than good. Absolutely. Um, okay.
Well, let's dive into a little bit about your background, right? So, when obviously you have 20 years of social impact work, an incredible career there. Where was that first moment, that earliest moment that you got interested in making an impact in your community? Yeah. I mean, you mentioned kind of in your start is from Evansville to, you know, South Bend and everywhere in between. I grew up in Evansville.
Uh, so early on, you know, my mom was a special education assistant teacher when I was growing up. So I remember going into uh you know elementary school in in El uh in Evansville when I was a kid and and helping out there. So uh I think you know come by that aspect uh honestly and when I got to to Indianapolis my first row was with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Indianapolis uh social work background. So that's really kind of what started my career in Indianapolis and really have kind of bounced around doing social impact, nonprofit work across the community for the last, like you said, 20 plus years. Man, well, I always think that uh that a career, you know, Boys and Girls Club, high school coach, all the things. It's super fulfilling to be able to like help out the next generation and give back to the next generation.
I mean, just uh incredible between coaching, right, and uh and your work there. kind of give us give us your career trajectory there. Right. So started at Boys and Girls Club and catch us up. Yeah. Moved in when I moved to Indianapolis 20 plus years ago.
First job started my career at Boys and Girls Clubs of Indianapolis. Uh went over to Goodwill Industries of Central and Southern Indiana. That's where I connected. I was the the school social worker at Indime. Uh so that's where I got into coaching and I said the coaching was an afterthought. I wasn't trying to be a high school basketball coach.
It just uh worked out. I joined Indie Met halfway through the second year of the school's existence. So, uh, we were just trying to find something for the kids to do after school. Uh, and then that kind of, you know, transformed into the success that we had on the court. Wait, it was the school's second year. What year did you win state?
2011. Uh, so I joined there halfway through the school second year. We did kind of an inter mural team. We used to go down to Chrismore House. Uh, and then we applied for IHSAA and then so we won state in the third year of competing in the state championship which I believe is still the fastest any school had won. Uh, from non-existence.
I was going to say, wait, when did the school start? Five years before that. Dang. So, five years, not even a high school to having a state championship. That's crazy. Yeah.
I think what do you what do you uh credit that to? Well, I said you got to have some luck. uh you know we we got lucky with certain we had four kids or three kids that kind of came in as freshman lots of kids in and out of the program that as juniors we got a couple other pieces of the puzzle their senior year we got a couple other pieces of the puzzle so now we had seven seniors uh that kind of some of them had come up with me I say like to say we all grew up together one thing I say a lot is uh you hear a lot of high school basketball coaches you're a high school sports fan uh coaches always say no kid is bigger than the program my philosophy was every kid is bigger than the program right? We didn't have a program. We existed to serve the kids. We existed to create a space for people to be successful beyond high school.
So, you know, some of my kids may not have graduated high school if they didn't have basketball. So, uh you know, we were not there to create this program and you know, no kid is bigger than the program. Like, we were just all in it together. Uh the kids stayed in my home regularly. You know, some of them lived with me for a period of time. you know, during that state run, it kind of got uh became big on the news because before regional, semi-state, and state finals on the Friday night, all the kids spent the night at my house.
Uh, you know, so we had pizza and made sure they got up the next morning and we ate. We all went to the games. Man, that's like part of coaching that people don't necessarily see. It's like I grew up in a house where it's like I it was just like second nature that my mom or dad would like wake me up and take me to practice or whatever it was on Saturday mornings. But that's not the case for everyone and like different transportation needs uh different circumstances like I mean and you got to make sure you had seven seniors. You got to make sure we need all seven of you at the game on Saturday.
Well, that was the thing. It was a lot of them rode uh Indigo for the bus. We had to our regional game was at Martinsville. We had the 10:00 a. m. slot which means we have to be there at 9:00.
We had to leave at 8. Indigo is not running on a Saturday morning all across town to get kids downtown at 8:00 in the morning. So, yeah, it was more out of necessity. I need to make sure I know uh that they're all up. They're, you know, getting where they need to be. So, we had a little 15 passenger van.
I drove it. It parked in my driveway. We got up the next morning. We went and had a, you know, a day in in regionals down in Martinsville. And then they wanted to do it again. It was good luck.
That's great. And then just sleepovers all the way through. Absolutely. Heck yeah. I love that. That's so much fun.
Um, okay. So, so we won't get too much in I mean I could talk for hours about high school basketball, but I really want to talk about the work you're doing at at Packaway Hunger. Absolutely. So, catch us up from, you know, you're coaching basketball. You're working as the social worker for Indie Met. And then give me the next steps.
Became the executive director of a a poverty initiative called Circles Indiana. Uh really focused on alleviating uh generational poverty initiatives. Um, and then I went and did consulting with the Lumina Foundation. So I worked in social innovation with Lumina for four years on contract helping them build out their impact investing function. Uh, I went to recycle force. Uh, so I was the VP of strategy over at Recycle Force, uh, electronic waste recycling only employing individuals coming out of prison.
From there I was the executive director at Timmy Global Health. uh so did uh primary healthc care in Ecuador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic. Man, is there a DEPA guy who started that? Yep. Yeah. What's his name?
Dr. Chuck Deedson. Yes. Uh I was back at a um event this summer and he got like honored. Okay. For for something, but and he was like he was like a doctor like what what was his specialty like anesthesiologist or I don't even know what it was.
worked a lot with kids and and so he had done some work and then founded Timmy uh probably 20 plus years ago now. So Timmy was a co casualty uh you know a lot of our revenue came from uh people paying to travel internationally. So at the time we had 22 staff. I think they're still around with maybe one staff now. So it was trying to rebuild and trying to do some things over there. But um because I remember like uh there would be like summer or spring trips or whatever where kids would go and then you do some sort of medical service in southern or South America.
Yep. So they would take doctors, nurses, pharmacists along with college students interested in in medicine to go down and and participate in those those brigades. So we did that for a couple of years and really was a dream job for me. uh but then navigating through you know the pandemic and all of that with a team all over the world uh was was challenging. So uh I left there in 2021 and then uh went to work for a national consulting firm focused on corporate culture, diversity, equity and inclusion employee experience. So a lot of corporate uh coaching, a lot of leadership development.
Okay. So you got out of the nonprofit sector for a little bit. For a little bit. Yeah. So then I was, you know, still doing social impact work, still trying to make the world a little bit better. Uh, so I did that for two and a half years, you know, connected with Packa Away Hunger and, you know, came in as the interim executive director in June of last year and then been in this role full-time since July.
Heck yeah. All right. So give us the the mission, underlying cause or or underlying problem and what are you solving at Packaway Hunger? Packaway Hunger exists to alleviate hunger one meal at a time. So this is our 15th year uh of existence here in 2025. Been around uh initially was a kids against hunger chapter which was an organization that really focused on kids doing service opportunities and most of those meals went internationally.
Uh and over time that's evolved. About half of our meals still go to international distribution partners. The other half stay kind of locally where they're packed. Most of that's in central Indiana. We have lots of initiatives. You know, we do we go to Ohio, we'll go to to Lake County, uh we'll go all over the state, but about half of those meals still stay in Indiana, and the other half go uh to international partners.
Last year, we sent mails to Honduras, Guatemala, South Sudan, Haiti, Cuba, uh and since the fall of 2022, we've sent about a million meals to Ukraine. Uh so it's a balance of you know local service global impact you know being able to address food insecurity and hunger wherever it's needed most man. Okay so yeah just give me the process of how you guys I mean a million meals since 2022 to Ukraine like how do you even make a million meals? Yeah. So, it's a an assembly line style. We we rely heavily on volunteers.
So, all of our our work is done through corporate faith communities, schools, civic groups. Uh so we have two and a half full-time staff. And last year we had about 7,000 volunteers. Uh so it's very volunteerheavy on the work that we do. But we pack a soy and rice-based meal uh with dehydrated vegetables and an M plus. So, we've partnered with the Matil Institute for the Advancement of Human Nutrition.
Uh they have an M plus packet, 21 vitamins and minerals. So, not only is it a coste effective, shelf stable meal. Our meal, we're one of the only groups in the country licensed to use this in the United States, uh it is also a highly nutritious meal. You know, vast majority of those and early on in the organization went to international partners. over time as food insecurity continues to increase around central Indiana and around the state uh you know we've done more and more to to come in and address that. So working heavily with volunteers we pack those meals and then we distribute them out to a gleaner food bank a Midwest food bank to direct food to food pantries uh really depending on where those things are needed.
Well, if you were in a youth group or maybe a school field trip, like I feel like a lot of schools or groups across Indiana have participated in this. When you're talking about the soy b like this all sparked like a memory from like fourth grade when we would go to the napony missionary church up in northern Indiana. I I'm I'm from up there and we would like get in this big assembly line and you just pack meals for I don't know two or three hours in an afternoon. Exact same situation. There's some different groups around the state that do similar type of things. Maybe they were Kids Against Hunger chapters.
Now they're different organizations. But absolutely, a lot of youth groups, a lot of churches, a lot of corporations looking for a day of service, looking to volunteer. Look, when you see this pack, it's like a bag, a plastic bag of a bunch of like grain looking stuff. That's right. And I thought that it all went overseas and went to other places where I don't know. I just think of like Indiana.
It's like, okay, you can go on the street and you can find like some bread and some this and then like a turkey sandwich, you know? I had no idea that those were being used in our state. I said depending on where they go, we send almost a million meals a year uh in Indiana and and growing. And how do you so you get this bag and you just like put water in it and you have or how does it work? So it's it's a rice based meal. So you you put water in it, you can make it in the microwave, you can make it on the stove top.
You know, it's designed to be bland, right? Because it goes to Ukraine, because it goes to Haiti, because it stays in central Indiana. It's designed to add your own local uh spices, you know, vegetables, proteins, whatever it is. You know, one of the big initiatives that we're working on this year is we've created four recipes uh using the Neutra Plunny because, you know, you mentioned in Indiana, we're not a rice based culture, right? We don't a lot of us don't grow up eating uh we eat a lot of, you know, corn and potatoes and meat. We don't eat a lot of, you know, rice and soy.
Uh so we've created these recipes. Uh so we've can work with groups to do food drives for the ingredients in these recipes and create these meal kits. So we can actually now work to give food pantries uh a meal kit that has four of the neutral plenty packets and all of the ingredients for four meals. So we can feed a family of four for a week for, you know, probably 30 or 40 bucks. 30 or Okay. A family of four for a week.
Is that three meals a day? Two meals a day. Give me the give me the economics there of like what one of those bags cost to get to a kid or anyone in central Indiana and beyond. One of those pouches is six servings. Uh oh. So again, it's rice.
So it's it's going to expand once you get it in there, but one pouch is six servings. It is 40 cents per serving. So the average meal cost in the state of Indiana is $4 a meal. We're putting it out for 40 cents a serving uh is what we're able to do. And that's all of the raw materials, all the ingredients. So 240 for one of those bags.
Is that my math right there? 40 for a bag. Yep. Okay. And that's, you know, it's going to provide six servings. And that's, you know, a family of four could be leftovers.
It could not be depending on how hungry somebody is. But, uh, it's probably not something that you want to eat three meals a day every single day. You know, wake up and have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Uh but it is a highly nutritious meal that is able to have some level of flexibility, right? So you can uh put some taco seasoning and some diced tomatoes and some canned chicken in there and have a little bit of a a taco flavor. You can do a chicken and white rice soup.
Uh oh man, we should do like a Korean show with that. That would be fun. Well, it's funny you say that. We can talk about uh we've got a special event coming up. Our first ever fundraising event. Our goal is to partner with 25 local chefs and restaurants.
Uh it's June 8th down at Cinderwood Event Center. Uh we're calling the event Nourish Neutral Plenty Challenge. Our goal is to get 25 chefs and restaurants. We're going to provide them with the Neutra Plenty meals and then we want them to get creative uh with some recipes to have a little bit of a cookoff. So we'll have folks come in, sample all of these different recipes, uh vote on the ones they like the best. No way.
Okay. So, 25 local chefs from around Indiana are going to come in, try to make Are there are there rules or stipulations? No rules. You've got to uh use the packet. Yep. Right.
So, you can't take out the soy, can't do, but you can add in whatever you want. Um, so, you know, for those listeners out there, I know this will probably come out in, like you said, maybe April. So, the event is in June. Right now, we've got two confirmed uh chefs. 23 more chefs. Absolutely.
We're we're actively recruiting partners and chefs and things now. 20 $20 ticket, familyfriendly. It's a Sunday afternoon openhouse style. Come in, learn about Packaway Hunker. Sample these uh these recipes. Uh vote for the one you like the best.
We'll have a you know people's choice winner of the Neutri Plenty Challenge. And and you said this is your first fundraising initi like event initiative. Yeah. So we're funded by our packing partners. So the the way that the organization's been funded for 14 years and continues to fund is those churches, those corporations, those youth groups that want to come and pack, they pay us 40 cents per however many meals that they pack. So if a group comes in and they want to pack 10,000 meals, they raise $4,000 for the event.
Uh and that's how we've sustained as a nonprofit organization. Uh it allows the the pack partners again sometimes a company just cuts a check and says you know we want to uh do this as a day of service for our our employees. You know churches will do it for international service. Uh you know some groups will fund raise. We have corporate sponsorships that you know a corporate sponsor will come in and say we want to fund you know this youth group doing a pack. We do we work with community foundations around the state that will allow us to do and and target food in their uh in their county.
We just got a grant from Johnson County uh to put 15,000 meals into Johnson County food pantries. So, it's a little bit of flexibility now to be able to do that. But yeah, first ever fundraising event uh June 8th down at Cinderwood. I love that. I think that'll be super fun. Excited.
We're getting a lot Where's Cinderwood at? It's right downtown uh right by Lucas Oil. It's that Union 525 building. Oh, yeah. The event space up. I think it's 601 South Meridian.
So, Yep. Yep. I know that. I know. The Union building. All right.
To really understand like I think when I was a kid and I went to that, I didn't really realize that this was in our community. And so, I want to talk about the root problem. And then we can kind of talk through the journey of pack away hunger. So when it comes to food insecurity in the state of Indiana like identify that problem and talk about that for us. Yeah. So I think there there's so many factors that come across this.
You know one of the things that we see one malnutrition in the states in Indiana looks different than it does in developing countries. We think of malnutrition we often think of you know very skinny. Some of these things oftentimes in the states you know malnutrition shows up as obesity right? So it's you know we may not have a caloric deficit but we may have a vitamin deficiency or we may have be malnourished in other ways because you know we may you know have eating a lot of processed foods a lot of fast foods some of these things. So really food and and that's due to availability availability expense you know so many things there there's certainly a convenience factor in some of that you know being able to get fresh fruits and vegetables some of these things in food deserts that we have around many of our communities so certainly there's an economic piece to it there's a convenience piece to it you know we think about food security it's really access to uh healthy nutritious food uh when you need it so when you think about food insecurity.
Uh a report that came out a couple of years ago says, you know, in the state of Indiana, uh there's 93 million missed meals. So that's a year a year. So that's kind of that food gap, right? So in Indianapolis and Marian County, that number is about 16 million. Of that 93 million, that's the number of meals that go missed by folks that, you know, want to have those meals. So that's really what Packaway Hunger uh exists to solve, right?
So our mission, our goal is to put highly nutritious, cost-effective meals into the food ecosystem quickly. You know, we're one of the only groups around. We've got 16 million meals uh missing in in the city of Indianapolis. With enough money, we could fill in a million meals, 2 million meals, three million meals. And what's the current impact you guys are making now in Indianapolis? And right now we put about probably last year about a half million meals um give or take because you know we put 100,000 plus mills in Lake County.
So you know spread out around but in central Indiana. And you said the total number was 90 million across the state. 93 million meals uh missed most. So it's not getting any and that's all all ages or just kids? All ages. All ages.
Yeah. So we have you know you can track kind of kid food insecurity. Uh certainly things like free and reduced lunch. Uh you know kids ability to get meals at schools is really important. There's family kind of food insecurity and how we think about that which is really if you think about kids the food insecurity really manifests in educational outcomes, right? It's hard to come to school and learn when you're hungry and you don't know where your next meal is coming from.
Right? When you think about families, it really manifests in economic outcomes, right? where you know it's an economic driver for folks to address food insecurity where you know more people can get to work and do some of these things. When you look at senior citizens, which is also another high food insecure population, really um people live independently, maybe they can't get out and and you know with transportation as well as they used to be able to do, then it starts to manifest as health outcomes, right? So we need to address senior citizen food insecurity because that's a health challenge. Now, health runs across all of those spectrums, but if you think about, you know, education, economic, health outcomes.
Yeah. It's like, how are you going to think about solving like a geometry problem when you're like your bellies rumbling? You're like, "What the uh I had um Martha Hoover from uh Padichu and like her whole restaurant group on and she talked about the work they're doing at the Padichu Foundation which is like providing high quality meals to you know and like changing out the kitchens that are Yeah, they're doing amazing work and and across the city doing some of those things like anything. It's just we need more of it. Yeah. Cuz I mean there is like a you know the the normal school lunch which is like it is what it is.
Like I'm sure it checks all the boxes but like does anyone get that jazzed up for like the mushy broccoli, right? And then there is like the piece that you guys are doing where it's like hey this is just about like helping close that gap, you know, and and you said talking about outcomes. I'd love to hear your take and and some thoughts of the work that you all are doing and the outcomes that you're producing. Some of the challenge that we have that we're working to address is our impact. What we know is these are highly nutritious meals that are going out to folks that need them around the world. We're kind of a middleman in some ways because our meals, a lot of the distribution goes through gleaners, goes through Midwest Food Bank.
They're getting them out to food pantries that they serve. So, they're going all over central Indiana and around the state. And then those food pantries are getting them out to the individuals that use the food pantry. So, we're a couple uh degrees removed from that end user. So, one of the things that we're actively working on this year is how do we get more data? How do we get more reports on uh the end user from our pantry partners, you know, from the food banks because it really is important.
What we know is there's, you know, a number of international research studies on our meals, on the M plus packet, on how it addresses malnutrition, how it addresses vitamin deficiency. We know this thing works and we know it is a it's a bland meal, right? Uh so that's why we're getting more and more creative because so you guys get that feedback, right? Like oh, you know, it's like this this doesn't taste like anything. Well, and people don't know what to do with it often times. So, you know, one of the things that we're working to address is creating these recipes.
We're going to have a QR code uh on the pouches, a new recipe page on the website so people that that may get those can go and learn about different ways that they can use it. This event in June working with these chefs, we're going to ask that they uh you know, put some of those recipes out and people can get creative. Uh you know, we would love to work with your Pachu foundations to be able to say, "Hey, here's these meals highly nutritious for kids. How do you incorporate something like that into what you're trying to solve?" This was something I learned at like a young age. And it's like when you think of like food drives and things like that, people always just give the that's at their back of their back of their pantry, right?
It's expired, you know? And it's just like like well, you know, it's like better than and it's like, yeah, it's better than nothing, but like your kid or their kid, you know, like they don't like anchovies as much as you don't. There's a reason it was left in your pantry, right? And so like yes it gets the job done but finding a way like food thinking through that like it doesn't have to be just get the job done like yes there are you know you're probably saying them abroad to people that something is better than nothing if you're in Ukraine and it's a war zone or something like that right uh but like here in Indiana it's like you're you're filling the gap right now but I think yeah finding a way that like a kid can eat this and not be like oh great like bland rice and soy yeah if you made it fresh out of the bag and didn't put anything in it you it would be fine, but it's not something that you would be super excited about every single day, right?
So, you do have to add uh seasonings and and some different things, some veggies, some, you know, whatever it is. But all of our ingredients that we're creating are made with shelf stable things that you might find out of a food pantry. Uh so, we can add some optional things in there. But, you know, it's really about creating this opportunity because what we see is we know that uh again, there's not a more coste effective, highly nutritious, shelf stable meal that exists, period. You cannot get a meal for 40 cents. So, if you were like a if you were like a doomsday prepper, like you'd want to have a few of these things, right?
Like, hey, put this down in your bunker, right? There's not anything that you can find this nutritious for 40 cents. Period. We want to give a huge shout out to our newest partner, Hope Plumbing. Now, Hope Plumbing serves Indianapolis and the surrounding areas when it comes to all things plumbing. Obviously, that includes sewer and drain, water heaters, water softeners, leak repairs, sump pump, gas lines, plumbing inspections, reverse osmosis system installation, grooder services, downspout installation, and septic tanks.
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Okay, so let's talk about outcomes, then. So, this is the issue. The issue is there's 93 million meals that are missed a year in Indiana. And and you guys serve how many meals a year globally? Yeah. So this our goal for 2025 is 3 million.
The most we've done is 2. 2 million. So we're pushing uh last couple years have been closer to 1. 5. So our goal is to double this year because the need is not getting any less. Uh so we're pushing pretty hard to serve uh 3 million people in in 2025.
So, it's a stretch and and we're going to push hard to get there, but uh we're excited. We've got a couple big partnerships uh already for 2025. So, so we're off to a great start so far this year. Do you ever like follow one of your meals to the end user and like depend it could be internationally or or locally uh but the impact that it's making in individual lives. Yeah. So, we we get a lot of reports back.
So, we have a partner in Ukraine. They're sending photos, they're sending videos, you know, on a very regular basis. Uh the partners called Be the Light, which is on the front lines in Ukraine. So, we're getting those kind of impact reports. We know how many meals are being served. We're seeing the photos and the videos of the families that are receiving those things.
You know, we have a partner that sent, you know, we sent over 250,000 meals to Cuba, uh that will land, you know, sometime middle of March of How do you decide where they're going to go? So, it's kind of a a two-pronged process. So, sometimes the partner will tell us, "Hey, we work with a group in Cuba. We want the meals to go there and then we will work with them to direct the meals where they want them to go." Uh otherwise, it comes up in, you know, depending on where the need is, where we have partners. Uh but we're, you know, we just had a a group that uh we're working with and they want to serve, you know, Islamic families.
So, we're directing mills and figuring out ways that we can ship into Cairo and then kind of redirect. Uh, so we have from a high school basketball coach to figuring out how to route a 100,000 meals from Cairo into Wow. For me, it touches on the same thing, right? I would say as we talked about, you know, recycle force working with individuals coming out of prison to pack away hunger to school, social worker, basketball. My goal is just to be of service, leave the world better than I found it. So, well, and I I feel like it's a non a non-traditional path through the nonprofit sector because usually it's like pick your thing and stick with it, right?
It's like I serve kids that are uh facing food insecurity or I do that. But like you go from Boys and Girls Club to Goodwill to the recycle fort. So like I mean for you has it always been I mean obviously you want to serve your community but what what led you to take so many different opportunities in the social impact sector? Yeah. For me I'm a builder and grower is kind of where my so I I love challenges. I love new things.
I love coming into organizations and divisions and teams where I can help build and grow. But like anything else, almost all of those career paths come from relationships. Uh I've been involved with the Rotary Club of Indianapolis for 15 years. Build For those that don't know, I know what Rotary Club is, but but for those who don't know, tell us about the Rotary Club. Rotary is a international service organization. So you know, 34,000 Rotary Clubs, 1.
4 million Rotarians around the world. Rotarians. Uh so local service, global service. uh my focus has been a lot on international work. So international development has really been a passion of mine. I've chaired the world's community service, the international service committee since 2012.
Uh so we've worked on projects in 30 different countries uh since 2012. So I feel like Rotary Club maybe the younger generation isn't as keen to like why join something like Rotary Club. Could you get like give us give us the sales pitch? Yeah, I would say there's something for everyone in Rotary, right? So, you know, that is local community so service uh but you're part of a global community, a global network of people that live by the motto of service above self. So, it really is driven by uh opportunities to serve.
But, you know, you join the Rotary Club of Indianapolis, there's you can do work with kids on the education committee, you can plant trees with environmental beautifification, there's community service, there's international service. Uh there literally is something for everyone to get involved and be able to network with like-minded folks that care about their communities, uh want to give back and can really, you know, it's one of the few places that you can have this bridge between, you know, local service and global impact. So I was just on the phone yesterday working on a project in Liberia. Uh and then, you know, I could do that through the work at the Rotary Club of Indianapolis. It's just unique way to to match those things that I care uh quite a bit about. I I love it.
Tell us about how Packaway Hunger got started 15 years ago. Yeah. So, founded by a great gentleman, Larry Moore. Uh so, again, it was a kids against hunger chapter. So, I don't have my kids against hunger knowledge, but I believe it's a Minnesota based organization initially, and it was a way for for youth to get involved with service. They created these these meals uh and most of them would go internationally.
you know, is probably very much aligned with what you were talking about in your community growing up. Uh, in 2010, my understanding is there were some challenges where a lot of the chapters decided to do their own thing and become independent 501c3s. So, uh, we were Kids Against Hunger Greenwood and then in 2010 became independent as Packa Away Hunger, very similar model, very similar assembly line style packing events. Uh, early on, still were very focused on international distribution. You know, over the last 14 years, really the model stayed the same. The the meal packing, the mills have stayed the same.
What's changed is uh where the the distribution goes, focusing more on central Indiana. And then over the last year, we've really pushed to find more ways to engage donors, partners, volunteers more year round, create more ways that we can be in fact impactful like the mill kits and some of these other things. So, not only how are we serving the volunteers, which has always been a really important factor because that's how we make our money as a nonprofit, um, but also how are we making sure that the meals are getting where they're needed most. Uh, and the impact that we have both on nutrition and food and security is the driving force in what we do every day. What is the largest packing event you guys have hosted? Yeah.
So, we work with Mount Pleasant Christian Church down in Greenwood. Just the last Saturday in January, they had about a thousand volunteers. Uh, and they did 385,000 meals between We started at 9:00 a. m. We were cleaned up and out of there by two. Uh, so it is an efficient process, let me tell you.
How many staff do you guys have? We have two full-time staff and one halftime. Um, so we do all of that with two and a half staff, 7,000 plus volunteers a year. How does all this stuff get where it needs to go? Uh, we have an efficient process, Nate. Let me tell you.
So, we have, I said, we have an executive director. We have an operations director. Uh, Angela's our operations director. Does a phenomenal job of helping coordinate logistics of the events and then uh work on the distribution. So, she's her role is helping get set up, run the events, and then get it out to where it's needed. And then, you know, we've got a marketing consultant uh that does some marketing and comm social media for us.
And then we have a a marketing and grants administrator that's in the office uh part-time, does a lot of our grant writing and reporting, you know, and kind of keeps the the office running and and does a great job. So, yeah, I mean, we're doing that on two and a half staff. Two and a half staff, thousand volunteers, five hours. Y 380,000 meals. Correct. That is that 300.
Okay. So it was a meal one serving. One serving. So that would be divide by six. That's a lot of public math. So 60,000 of those bags though of the pouches.
So yeah, I mean you got over 60,000. We have 216 of the mills that go in a box. 33 pouches per box. 216 mills. 7,128 mills on a pallet. Uh so many pallets that I had, but we had a full container of mills, 2 80,000 of those meals.
They literally left the church and were on their way to port to be shipped to Cuba, you know, by Monday. It's just wild to me that you could make that that big of an impact is coming from 5 hours on a Sunday. You know, I think one of the things that I've seen in, you know, my eight months of of being the executive director of Packaway Hunger is um it has to be the best kept secret around. If I was, you know, looking at the budget for the state of Indiana, if I'm the city of Indianapolis, um you can't feed more people for 40 cents a meal. You just can't do it, right? So, you know, we've kind of shifted the way that we're talking about this where you say, "How many people do you want to feed?"
Right? Forget about the volunteers. We can find volunteers. We have plenty of people that want to serve. But for 40 cents a meal, you've got a gap of 16 million meals in the city of Indianapolis. 93 million mills around the state of Indiana.
How many people do you want to feed for 40 cents? Because we can scale up and we could be packing 5 million meals a year. The city, the state, a foundation comes in and says, "We want to feed a million people." We could have a million people fed this year. extra people, more people and is the So the biggest gap is getting the 40 cents per each meal. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, which is nothing, right? And you know, but I think some of it has just been the way that we've not gone after grants. We've not gotten a lot of philanthropy. We've not gotten, you know, government funding. Again, if you're the state of Indiana, if you're the city of Indianapolis, you know what we know is and and look, there's we are not a long-term sustainable solution to some of these problems.
So investing in local farmers, in local growers, in food ecosystems, in addressing food deserts, all of that is critically important. And that's not the role that we're playing. The role that we're playing is we're putting cost-effective, highly nutritious meals into the food ecosystem today. Uh we have a partner in Guatemala who I know I've known for a long time. They do a lot of nutrition work and they're very focused on supporting local growers, supporting farmers, long-term sustainability in their community. And I asked the partner recently, I said, "How do you balance this need for long-term sustainability, improving the food ecosystem in your community and us sending you meals?"
And she said, "We will never stop focused on the long-term outcomes, but my people are hungry today." Right? And that's the role that we play at Packaway Hunger. So, we need the investment in all of these root causes. We're not creating that solution. It's a short it's a band-aid.
It is, right? It's a short-term because I mean, if you're growing a garden or whatever you're doing, it takes time to build all the infrastructure talking about like uh food deserts. Yep. like a I mean there's several and there's been some initiatives across central Indiana in the last couple years to help you know but it's not like you can't just like snap your fingers and a Kroger appears there or whatever. We will never I will never say we're we're not solving that problem, right? We we understand come from a background that understands these root causes.
We need to address root causes of poverty. What are the root causes when it comes to food insecurity that you're that people are trying to go and solve? I mean certainly now food access is really important. Access to healthy nutritious meals. Um access to things like grocery stores in the food desert. Yeah.
What is the closest cost effective option for fresh fruits, vegetables? Like, you know, I think of like where I go and it's like the outside of the store, right? But it's like the most expensive part, right? Exactly. Yeah. And it it's tough, right?
And even when you go to a farmers market, you go to some of these places, um those are often times even more expensive. Oh my gosh. You go to the caramel farmers market, you better like be willing to fork up a kidney, right? So there there's not I mean there's there's evolving options, right? I mean there there are investments in in local farms and in urban gardens and all these things all of them are critically important. The work that Padichu is doing the work that you know some of these other folks need all of it.
Is there like an initiative or an organization that you see as a good complement to the work you guys are doing solving hunger now versus like what's an or around central Indiana that's doing a good job of fixing the the root problem. I think it it takes everybody. So often organizations in in the nonprofit sector uh in Indianapolis and beyond are so siloed on on doing this work. So the Indie Hunger Network is a great organization has a lot of these organizations focused on food insecurity and hunger relief, your Second Helpings, your uh Meals on Wheels, Gleaners, Midwest Food Bank. So everybody kind of coming together to to look at some of these things. But ultimately these are not simple problems.
They don't have simple solutions, right? because everything gets so siloed around it's a housing problem, it's an education problem, it's an economic problem, it's a transportation problem, right? I mean, there's so many of these factors and we we get kind of siloed in, you know, what we're looking to address. Um, but, you know, we need jobs, we need housing, we need transportation, we need access to, you know, to to nutritious food. Uh, these are complex systemic challenges. Um, and really what we need, I think, is more organizations working through those silos and working collaboratively with people that do very different things that they do.
Uh, so we've got job folks and hunger folks and housing folks all working together in ways that are unique. Yeah. Because the same people that need shoes probably need a meal, right? And the same people that need a meal probably need a job, probably need, you know, this, that, and the other. And it's like, well, I I only have five days a week. So, it's like, I have to go to the this place.
I got to go pick up a meal. I got to go to the shoe bank or this that. And it's like, and I don't know. I don't I don't think nonprofits think like, oh, we're competing for the same dollars or but it's like a little bit they are, right? It's like you can if you have a $1,000 philanthropy budget, it's like it's going somewhere. But the more they could work together to make an ease of access for the consu consumer the end the end resident I don't know yeah it's it's a tough thing right and there's a lot of good people a lot of smart people working on these things right and it's a challenge and it continues to be a challenge but you know figuring out ways to work cross- sector work collaboratively and I think that's one of the things that Packaway Hunger does such a great job of is we're engaging the corporate community right now one of the things that we'll continue to work on is how do we tell the story?
How do we talk about so it's not just, you know, we're not working with this this company to provide a a day of service where they don't care if they're packing uh a meal or a homeless kit or planning, you know, they're doing it to to have a company day of service. That's great. But when they're with us and when we're providing that opportunity to serve, which is critically important, we need to be able to talk about this data, talk about food insecurity, talk about the impact that they're making, uh, and switch that gear a little bit for someone mentally to not just say, you know, I'm getting four hours of PTO to go volunteer, which is great, and these are things that I need to learn about, educate myself on in the community, because we often don't know, you know, the impact of food insecurity and malnutrition. in our local communities and the work that organizations are doing like Packway Hunger.
So, this question is not to it's not to say like solve food insecurity, but how much money would it cost to feed every resident of central Indiana that's missing meals? I mean, you know, if we think of 16 million, I'm not going to pull the math off now. 16 million times 40ent 16 million times 40 cents. Uh and a scale like that, we could probably do it for much cheaper. You could probably do it for a 25 cent meal times. Okay, so 25 cents.
Call it 25 cents. Let's see where we land. $4 million. So for $4 million, anyone who needed a meal this year in Indiana could get have access to it. Whether they chose to go and pick it up or that this that the logistics piece of it, not saying that, but to have enough food in the in the bank. The data says there's 16 million missiles in in Indianapolis.
That's probably growing. These are probably 2022. everything's, you know, a year or two behind on some of that data. We what we know is with grocery prices, with some of the things, you know, it food insecurity is greater today than it was in 2022. 2022 that number was 16 million in Indianapolis, 93 million give or take around the state. So, yes, $4 million we could have, you know, a healthy, nutritious meal for every single person that was missing a meal in the state uh in Indianapolis for 23,250,000.
Everyone who needed a meal in in the state of Indiana could get a meal. 93 million missing meals in 2022. Y throughout the year cost 25 cents to get a meal. So 23,250,000 that's what we need. All right, Mike Braun and company. You heard it here.
Well, and I think that's the thing is it's when we talk about this, it's often kind of incomprehensible, right? When we talk about the fact that we have two and a half staff with some event managers that can do a thousand volunteers and 380,000 meals and have it distributed in like 8 hours, right? Like and do it for 30 cents, 40 cents a meal. The the math just doesn't add up for people that don't understand uh you know what it is that we're doing. So, so yeah, when you you see that to be able to say, you know, could we generate there's a lot of other factors to be able to create 93 million mills, you might need more than two and a half people. We probably need more than two and a half people.
We need a, you know, a lot more volunteers, but the reality is is the the biggest gap right now is the funding and the partnerships. So, you know, we could go from a million and a half, 3 million, 5 million meals probably without adding too much staff or capacity just on 40 cents a mill. So, for onetenth of the average meal cost in the state of Indiana, you know, we're generating Yeah. It's like, think about one of those bags. And people at home, if you don't know, go look up Packa Away Hunger if you don't know what we're talking about. I think most people will know what we're talking about, but like one of those big plastic bags full of all the nutrients, the rice, this, that, and the other thing.
two $2. 40. Yep. You think like $2, you're getting like a double cheeseburger for McDonald's for that, right? Versus six meals. When you think so, the the biggest food insecure community that exists, we talked about the children, we talked about families, we talked about seniors, college students across the country is the highest 25% of college students, almost double.
Wait, what? College students across the country, undergrad students, food insecurity rate is about 25%. Um, now why is that? All the same reasons. Real college kids eating ramen noodles. College kids.
Well, that's the thing. We're, you know, you could, the most probably accurate comparison of our meals is probably ramen, right? I mean, it's it's easy. It's quick. You can make it in the microwave, put some water in it. Um, dude, ramen's fire, though.
Like, dude, that's what you need. Those little flavor packets. We need the flavor packets. Yeah. So, I mean, but that's that's ultimately the the kind of comparison, but we're still cheaper, right? Yeah.
ramen. I used to win. This is which I think this is respectable, but I used to um I wanted to win the food drives always at our school. So I would buy ramen like the big 24 but I would open it up. So instead of one item, it was 24 items for like two bucks. And you just like all a sudden you spend, you know, you spend 20 bucks and you bring in 200 like how did Nate bring in 200 items, 200 individual packets of ramen.
Boom. There you go. And it tastes good. Yeah. So again, comparisonwise, that's probably similar cost-effective some of those things, but college students are doing. You know, so many colleges are are working through this.
A lot of colleges have food pantries. There's not a lot of food in them oftent times. So again, it's not an easy solution to some of these things, but we can target. We've worked with some uh universities that do meal packs with college students and then we keep the meals in their college food pantry. Right. What's the biggest misconception about packa away hunger?
One, I think it's, you know, there's a misconception around the meals, I think, right? It's just, you know, it's not something that folks in central Indiana want. And I had that misconcept for sure. It's like we made this and I'm like, oh, so this is what people that are experiencing real need like this is what they eat, but like we wouldn't like I wouldn't eat this. I think that's a big that that's probably the biggest misconception, right? is just, you know, the food.
We make it around the office with just you have some, you know, uh, taco seasoning, some canned tomatoes, and we can make lunch, right? Maybe, maybe we do this. Here's an idea for one of your upcoming fundraisers. We raise some money and I'll survive on nothing but pack away hunger meals for a month and document the process. Let's do it. And I don't know, there's an there there that would be like I just eat like breakfast, lunch, dinner with different flavors.
Love it. I'll use each one of the the chef's 25 different recipes. There you go. Now, let's eat that for a month. Eat it for a month and then document the process and people can donate money along the way. Absolutely.
Let's do it. I'm going to hold you to it. All right. Call I'll get that uh Well, I think it's also pretty like nutritious like it would keep me from eating junk. There's, you know, the the one thing I I want to acknowledge for, you know, there's going to be some people that listen to this that that know the meals. It is high in sodium.
Putting that out there. It is designed to be high in sodium. Uh, it's designed initially for the first thousand days of a child's life. Fighting acute and chronic malnutrition. So, it's high in iodine makes it high in sodium. Um, okay.
So, maybe I'm not supposed to eat for every meal for a month. There's I'm acknowledging the fact that it is high in sodium and it is also high in vitamins and minerals. 21 vitamins and minerals. Things that are not in, you know, you do a sideby-side nutrition comparison to a ramen or some of the other, you know, things that come high in sodium. Very high in sodium. Um, so I'm acknowledging that that one, the meals aren't for everyone.
Two, they are high in sodium, but you know, when you think about it's right, right? Like this is you and you're honest with that, which I appreciate. You're not saying like, yeah, if we just do this is the a it fills a need immediately for a problem that other people are are working on fixing. You know, like you're like the intermediary between like someone's hungry right now. We haven't fixed the food insecurity issue systemically. So like this needs to exist in the short term.
There is not a I keep saying it. It was there's not a way to put more nutritious food for less money immediately. Right. I mean we could have we could add two million meals in, you know, the next six months. And ideally someone comes along and puts you out of business, right? Absolutely.
You know, like if we actually get to the point where we fix the problem, like you no longer exist anymore. which would be great, right? Like if there, you know, if urban farming and this that and the other thing or it's like you just great like central Indiana and beyond like all these places it's like cool, you could just like point your direction this way and then the system to fix it comes in and fixes that and then you point your system the other way. Like that makes a lot of sense to me. I appreciate uh your insight there. What is the most rewarding part of the work that you're doing at Packa Away Hunger?
You know, I think for me it it's able we're able to combine a lot of things with Packaway Hunger, right? I talked about being in Rotary for the last 15 years. So service is important to me. So we provide opportunities for more than 7,000 people to be of service in their community. So we a way that people can create fun, inclusive, familyfriendly service opportunities. So people can create uh tangible impact whenever they volunteer with Packaway Hunger.
And then we're able to feed over a million people every year. So it combines the ability to create opportunities for individuals to serve, for children to serve, for companies to serve, and we're able to again address local food insecurity and hunger relief, international, you know, uh we're able to respond quickly to disasters or war or famine to be able to get meals, you know, where they're needed most. That combination of kind of front end, back end, I think is unique to the work that we're able to do and I find meaningful and impactful because I love when I'm able to see children, five, six, eight year olds with their families being of service creating a tangible product that we know is having real impact uh both on, you know, again around food insecurity, on hunger relief, on nutrition, uh all those things. So that balance of our being able to to provide that opportunity on both sides is really really unique in the marketplace.
If you had a magic wand and could change anything to help solve the food insecurity problem, what would you do? You know, I think collaboration is so important around all of these things. We've talked about, you know, some of these these, you know, urban gardens or the the food growers and some of these things. How do we support them? It takes, you know, individuals like that, the investment in them. And then let's take those vegetables and match it with a neutral plenty meal, right?
How do we we have to solve this problem more collectively? And it takes more collaboration, a more holistic systemic approach to all of these things. So, you know, we want to solve this problem. We want to put ourselves out of business. And I think having a a much more collaborative nature and so much of that is tied to funders, right? We need philanthropy.
We need foundations. We need the city and state to invest in those collaborations to be able to say we want to support, you know, the money that we have targeted to solve this problem. We want to target, but only when you you come to the table with uh an urban grower with vegetables, a Pachu Foundation working in the schools, Packa Away Hunger, who's addressing some of these other things. How do you create more collaboration? Because ultimately when you do that 1 plus 1 equals three. Yeah.
Right. We're able to do more together than we can do individually. It's like the the age-old like the adage of if you give someone a fish, they'll eat for a day. If you teach them to fish, they'll eat for a lifetime. But you you got to have you got to have the energy and the strength to pick up your fishing pole. So you need the the both of them, right?
This absolutely. Man, this has been a great conversation. We're coming down to the end. We have a fun couple fun segment questions here at the end. First one's our younger years segment brought to you by our friends at OR Fellowship. They're a great organization here in Indiana helping develop young business leaders across the state.
Nick, what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self? Relationships are so important, the connections, the community, um, and being able to to foster those and, you know, really viewing. I think one of the things that that I see now in the work that I do who's you know a little farther along in my career is really fostering those birectional things. So so often when you're 22 you're thinking about you know I'm looking for a mentor. I'm looking to connect. I'm looking for you know folks that can help pour into me but also you know to be of service to give back to be open to helping across wherever I can I think is is so important.
And um so I'm always trying to, you know, even now if someone calls and wants to grab a coffee, if someone, you know, being able to support that and I think at 22, you're so interested in kind of focusing on my career and my path and and really shifting that and being of service and how can I help those around me uh in a slightly different way, not just focused on how I can advance, you know, myself and my career. I love that. I think that the most good happens to those who do the most good. I don't know if that's a quote, but uh like like put some good stuff out in the world and like trust that good stuff's going to come back towards you. All right, now we're here to the lightning round. I have a couple fun questions for you.
So, besides Packa Away Hunger, what's your favorite local charity? So, I got to go with Rotary. I got to go with Rotary Club of Indianapolis. Big Rotary guy. I know. I know.
I I am. Uh so, I've got to do because again, there's I'm being able to to support some of those things locally, globally. Uh so you know that's that's a big part of my time. Okay. You're talking about you guys have an event coming up on June 8th. What are the other events you have coming on the calendar this year?
Yeah, this is a huge summer for Packaway Hunger. So again something so in May we're doing a documentary film screening uh on food and security. Uh and then we're launching a 15-year impact paper um along with that. So in June we have our June 8th event. It's called Nourish and Neutra Plunny Challenge uh at Cinderwood. You can buy tickets and all that stuff's on our website, packawayhunger.
org. July 10th, we're partnering with Run317. Uh so they're back in Broadripple for one of their Run 317 events July 10th. Uh so you can actually sign up uh to be a part of that. And we're the the kind of charity partner um July 10th and then August. Is that in the evening on the July Thursday?
July 10th. I'm putting that in. I'm going to run that one. Yep. Thursday evening, uh, July 10th in Broadripple. We'll be there supporting and and working with Run 317.
August 28th, we're out at Hickory Hills Polo Club. Uh, and we're partnering with Is that up by like Lebanon? Up in Yeah. Whitestown. Whitestown area. So, uh, we're partnering with them as their nonprofit partner.
Uh, so huge summer for I think I need to go to Polo. I've never been to be a blast. I've been one time. Uh, it's a blast. So, mark the calendar. August 28th.
Uh, we'll have you there. But, yeah. Yeah. So, we've got events in May, June, July, and August really focused on celebrating our 15 years of impact. More than 23 million meals, more than 100,000 volunteers uh over the last 15 years. So, we're celebrating big this summer.
All right. So, you have all those events coming up. Great stuff. I'll be at the Run 317. Uh you have Nourish coming up. Besides your events, you know, as you think through all these other nonprofits that host gallas and events and all the, what's your favorite nonprofit event to attend?
The International Center has a great event on, you know, think local, live global or live global. Think global. Uh, I apologize for screwing that up there. International center. Wait, so wait, what is it? International center.
I think it's live local, think global. Live local. Yeah. Uh, what's it what's it about? Uh, so it's just again connecting all of the work with international service and and the the impact that the international community makes on Indiana, the Indiana makes on the international community. Um, live local, think global from the international center.
Okay. So, what kind of stuff do they have there? Send it over. I've only been a couple of times. So, check them out uh in their website. Really cool event.
I think it's coming up in April, actually. So, April 21st. Yeah. International diplomacy. Eat Chinese food. Dance to Russian music.
Celebrate a French holiday. and participate in Scottish games. There you go. So, obviously, we talked about the international piece and uh there's so much flavor and culture around Indiana and the impact that we have around the world and that the world has on us. Uh so I think especially in you know the the 2025 it's important to to recognize uh the importance of uh refugees and immigrants and the international community and the role that that we all play in in uh kind of supporting and impacting and influencing one another. I love it.
Uh these are the same three questions I asked to everyone that sits in the chair. First one, what's something the world needs to know about Indiana? I think there's so much good in Indiana. the there it is such a who's your hospitality is a real thing. Uh we have such a service culture uh around the state and um you know we should highlight more of that. Amen.
And high school basketball maybe. Yeah. High school wrestling, right? Uh I did you know I'm the varsity coach at Bishopard. Yeah, I've been the head coach there for 5 years now. So Well, my kids are at Brownsburg.
So Brownsburg just had a nice little run uh in in high school wrestling. Dude, they are unreal. Like phenomenal. Seven out of 14 weight passes. They were the champs. Crazy.
Could have been eight, too. It was like a last second one. They're I'll just give a brief caveat. I took two guys. We had two guys make it to state. They both got six.
Congrats, Jack and Sam. They're so good. By the second session on day two, so this is the third session. I Yeah, third session, I believe. We had two wrestlers. We had lost more matches than Brownsburg had.
Yeah. And they brought 11. And I'm just like, she whiz. So my my youngest son's a senior at Brownsburg. So uh Do you play basketball? He did not.
My older son played basketball. My younger son does track. Oh, fun. Okay. Next question. Ask everyone.
What is a hidden gem in Indiana? I absolutely love I spend as much time as humanly possible at Eagle Creek. So maybe it's hidden, maybe it's not, but everyone should be spending more time at Eagle Creek. So there's lots of great parks, lots of things, but I absolutely love everything about Eagle Creek. Whether I'm paddle boarding uh or just on the trails, I absolutely love Eagle Creek. It's one of the first things I buy every single year.
Every January 1st is my annual pass to Eagle Creek. There we go. Love that. Uh final question. Who's a Hoosier we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things.
A woman named Andrea Butcher. Uh she is a phenomenal leadership development executive coach. She's building some really amazing things all over the country. Uh, Abundant Empowerment is the brand that she's building. She talks a lot about building an empire. Uh, she's someone that's very influential on my leadership journey.
Uh, and really looking at doing some amazing things this year in 2025, building community around leaders all over the country, doing work in Indianapolis and Philadelphia and Denver, uh, local events, virtual events. So things that I'm excited to participate in um some of these events, it's just growing like crazy. Some of the work that that she's doing, leadership is hard. Uh and being able to to develop our companies, develop our cultures. Um she's someone that I rely heavily on. She's doing amazing things just launching this business and brand and it's just taken off like crazy supporting leaders all over the country and being more human- centered uh being more focused on developing their people, developing their cultures and creating community.
One of the things that we we all need more of especially coming out of co is continuing to develop communities of like-minded people. So, uh she's doing amazing work and I'm super proud to you know be adjacently connected to the work that they're doing at Abundant Empowerment. Heck yeah. Andrea Butcher. Yeah, that's right. Amazing.
Well, hey, Nick, thank you for coming on the show and sharing with us um the issues that central Indiana and beyond are experiencing when it comes to food insecurity, as well as sharing what Packaway Hunger is doing to help fight that problem both in central Indiana and beyond across the state of Indiana and, you know, over to Ukraine and and other places. I do think we're gonna have to uh to look into what it would be like to survive uh for an entire month and do some big fun thrive. Thrive. I mean, every day is thriving. Yeah. No, you're right.
It's I mean it's a good nutritious. Like I'll be fine. I'm sure what I eat is actually way worse, you know? Like actually it's terrible. Like I I'm like the ultimate go out to eater. So uh that would actually be really fun.
We could raise a bunch of money. Um and then one last time, where can people find you? Where can people find Packaway Hunger and how can um people get plugged in with those events? Yeah, absolutely. So, packawayhunger. org uh social media packaway hunger.
Uh anyone that listens just email me directly. So, you can you can email nicke. packawayhunger. org. Email me directly. Say, I heard you on get in uh and you know, we want to partner, we want to work.
Uh we've also got a um you know, info at PackawayHunger. What's the price if someone wanted to like get some of their employees together? What's like a minimum barrier of entry to host an event with you guys? Yeah, usually it's it's 10,000 meals. Um, so that's kind of the minimum. So around that, you know, we can do probably minimum of $3,000 investment.
U depending on where it is in central Indiana, we can go as low as a pallet, which is, like I said, a little over 7,000 meals. But that's kind of the minimum we're able we can host at our we have a warehouse in Beach Grove. Uh so we can host up to 50 volunteers uh there, but most of them we come to you. So we come to your group, we come to your business, we can set up, but uh so yeah, anyone that wants to get involved um again 40 cents a meal to pack, but also if you want to sponsor, we've got tons of schools and youth groups that want to work and they're trying to raise funds. If you're a business and you say, you know, we don't have the time, we don't have enough people, but we want to sponsor 25, 50 kids to be able to serve, then let us know. We can always direct those sponsorships uh into supporting youth service.
Heck yeah. Amazing. Well, hey, thanks for coming on. Keep up the great work. Uh it's awesome to have leaders like you across central Indiana that are doing great work, helping um solve the problems that need solved. Thanks, Nate.
I appreciate you having me on. Thank you for listening to this episode of Get In. If you like what you heard, make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts, this show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at sweetwater. com. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle.
Thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the Hoosier State great. We'll see you next time here on Get
