2026 Food for the Holidays campaign; help families facing hunger

Well, Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin is on a mission to make sure families across our area have access to nutritious food throughout the holiday season. Andrew Muzu joining us live from the group's Milwaukee campus, where the Food for the Holidays campaign is kicking off right now. Andrew. Yeah Haley and there's a lot of work that always is happening here at Feeding America. Today we're just kicking off this new campaign of course all throughout the morning we've been talking about how we're kicking off the holiday season and of course you can talk about the lights, the treats, all those things but also the community work at hand. I'm joined by Monique Kelly, President and CEO. Big day ahead of us today. Plenty of volunteers, special guests. But I think we just start off with this, especially from your vantage point. When we're thinking about the holiday season, we're thinking about family time. What does this mean, especially to you, when you're able to help so many families who might be facing hunger going into this holiday season? So the thing about hunger is that it's cyclical. People are going to experience hunger for moments in their life and then pop back into a position where they're able to purchase enough food to have the type of holiday experience that they want. But this year we know that with the rising cost of food, with inflation, there are going to be families that historically have been fine but this year they really need the assistance and so this is an opportunity to invite the community to Extend a loving hand, an opportunity for a family to really enjoy such a special time of year together. Yeah, and I feel like one of the biggest things that you guys do is you guys bring the community together through volunteers. What does that say about our community? What's really incredible is like the volume of people that want to be here with us. So morning and afternoon, Monday through Friday, we have people signing up. We'll have folks here all day today helping us and throughout the holiday season. It's beautiful. It's really like the kickstart to the giving season, to the holiday season. People like leaning in together to support one another. And if someone's watching this and they're like, you know what, I might want to volunteer, how could they do that? So go to our website, FeedingAmericaWI.org, and you just easily sign up there online. Come out and join us. We make it really easy, we make it really fun, and it'll be super cheery this holiday season. Of course, and today is not the only day that someone might want to volunteer. There's plenty of opportunities that you guys have, you guys do offer. So we got that out the way. Now, as sort of like a teaser, because of course we'll get into it, we're going to be here for a while. But what can people expect today? I know we have a special guest coming in today. Yes, we have a very special guest who's going to be joining us this afternoon with our volunteers. So can I say the name? Yeah, you can go ahead. All right, Charlie Barron is going to be with us this afternoon. And so he'll be helping us with our volunteer shifts. But like you said. Morning, afternoon, this is like the kickoff for this very special campaign all the way through the end of December. So please come out and join us if you're with us today. Really special day to kick it off. Charlie Barron, we're just really... Thankful for his attention and energy around this and for every volunteer that's going to spend time with us this holiday season. And even as we await that, I'm already seeing some folks already around here getting things together. You can sort of see what the packing might consist of, especially with volunteers all throughout this area. So definitely this is what Feeding America is all about. Obviously, we were at an event last week. We're talking about the Million Meal Pack. And now we're back again with the start of the holiday season. So definitely a lot to look forward to today. We'll be back in about half an hour or so with the next special guest. But, yeah, we'll send it back to you in the studio for now. All right. Thanks so much, Andrew. Of course, a good reminder this holiday season to give back and to help others. We'll check back in with you soon.