South Central Iowa Federation Of Labor Donates 6,500+ Meals

South Central Iowa Federation of Labor members volunteered to fill around 325 baskets of food, equal to about 6,500 individual meals, at the United Auto Workers Local 450 hall in Des Moines Friday morning.

The food will be distributed to United Way agencies such as Creative Visions, Visiting Nurses and EveryStep Hospice. They will also go to a homeless shelter in Des Moines and to union members who are unemployed, underemployed, laid off, currently on disability or retired.

Holly Sagar, with the South Central Iowa Federation of Labor, said she’s been organizing the holiday food drive for nearly 20 years and since 2000 the union members have filled about 7,000 baskets, or 140,000 individual meals.

This year’s event took four days and more than 90 volunteers to pull off, but Sagar said the volunteers always enjoy helping out.

“Every year we don’t even really have to put the all-call out. We just have people show up throughout the day,” Sagar said. “It’s just a big warm fuzzy feeling for them.”

Bags were filled with a variety of foods including canned tuna and vegetables, cereals, soups, noodles and hot chocolate. Each bag contained enough food for about 20 individual meals.

The food was donated by union members and affiliate organizations.

The South Central Iowa Federation of Labor was founded in 1967, stretches across 23 counties and has 70 local affiliates and 12,000 union members.

by Paige Godden
Posted 12/15/19