History

Our volunteers had fun distributing fliers on Saturday in the Worthington Gates neighborhood. They were greeted by many friendly people in your neck of the woods. Banta Feeds volunteers from l to r: Antonio Hisick, Sarah Highlen, Connie Dickey (& son), Marian Merkle, Eileen Piehl, and front Damaris Hisick. Thank you to all of our volunteers.

If you’ve never heard of Banta Feeds, you’ve probably come here to find out exactly what it is.

Banta Feeds was founded in February 2009 after I read an article in the newspaper explaining that due to the poor economy, our local food pantries were receiving much fewer donations, and gaining many more clients in need. Not only have private donations gone down, but the U.S.D.A. had nothing for the Immanuel Lutheran Food Pantry in January.

We are all having to struggle a lot more to pay our bills and make it, and this is why we aren’t always able to make large donations to food pantries. But this struggle doesn’t have to stop us if we all put something into the pot.

So I founded Banta Feeds on the idea that, “Alone we have a pebble, but together we can build mountains.” And I started a neighborhood food drive that began two days later. Since I live in the Banta neighborhood of Valparaiso, I decided to name my food drive after it, being that it was being performed in my area. After collecting 44 bags worth of non-perishable items for two separate local food pantries, I decided that success is not meant to be broken …

I then launched the Central Challenge Food Drive and collected 34 bags of non-perishables. The Central and Banta neighborhoods in Valparaiso have proven and fulfilled the initial mantra of the program. We don’t have to struggle to help our hurting neighbors out–we just need to work together like neighbors should.

Banta Feeds Food Drives has now grown into a Valparaiso-based organization that is committed to facilitating community-oriented neighborhood and organizational food drives to benefit our Valparaiso and Porter County neighbors in need.  Neighbors are coming together to help out neighbors. That’s just what neighbors are for.

For even more information on the food drive program, and to see what we have in store for the near future, please visit the various pages you see on the left-hand side of the site. If you have any questions or comments, please email me at: organizer@bantafeeds.com.

Thank you so much for visiting Banta Feeds Food Drives, and I thank you tremendously for your support.

~Christine Hisick, Founding Organizer

Employees at Porter Health System in Valparaiso took part in a food drive with Banta Feeds, raising monetary donations for our local food pantries. L to R: Darquia Biffle, Andy Fazekas, Mary Brewer, and Paul Braun. Porter Health System raised $417.45 in one day for those in need.