Southern Indiana Living MayJune 2012

DARE
to
CARE
HElping
SoutHERn inDiAnA
onE mEAl At A timE
Story // Lisa Greer
Photos // Kim Greer
When we think of hunger, we think of far-away
places and third world countries or city living
in, but we seldom think of it as being in
America’s suburbs or our next door neighbor’s
home in rural southern Indiana.
The disturbing trend, according to Dare to Care Food
Bank Executive Director Brian Riendeau, is that people who
wouldn’t normally fall into the at risk group are now becoming
part of these statistics.
Not long after Riendeau began working with Dare to
Care, he received a call from someone desperate to feed her
children.
“It was someone in the community who was well educated,
with a good job and the resources to provide for her
family,” he said. “Except that she’d had a series of dominos
fall in her life that included massive medical bills, divorce
and job loss.”
After receiving assistance from Dare to Care, Reindeau received
a call to say the woman found a job, was back on her
feet, and planned to pay back the organization.
“That’s the face of hunger that we are seeing now. It’s very
different than a few years ago,” Riendeau said.
While scenarios like this are all in a day’s work for Riendeau,
it’s an act that can make the difference between life
May/June 2012 • 30
and death to someone, as in the instance of 9-year-old Bobby
Ellis who died on Thanksgiving Eve in 1969 from starvation.
“Bobby’s death was tragic, but it started a spark in this
community causing people to come together,” Riendeau
said.
From that heartbreaking event 42 years ago, and the efforts
of Father Jack Johns, the Dare to Care food bank was
born.Johns began by collecting food and storing it in his
church basement, then delivering it out to people in need in
the community from the back of a pick-up truck.