To help eradicate the issue of food insecurity in the metro Atlanta area, the Atlanta Hawks created one of the largest community initiatives in America. Held at the State Farm Arena, the Million Meal Pack brought together 5,000 volunteers who packed one million meals.
Notable volunteers included Mayor Andre Dickens, CEO Steve Koonin, State Farm Senior Vice President Dan Krause, NBA Hall of Famer and Hawks Legend Dikembe Mutombo as well as Congresswoman Nikema Williams.
“In Atlanta, 1 in 9 people are dealing with food insecurity and 1 in 7 are children,” Mayor Dickens said during the event. “So what the Atlanta Hawks, U.S. Hunger, State Farm are coming together to pack 1 million meals, it really means something. It shows the Atlanta way. No where else in the nation do they do it at this scale. We are the largest single-day meal pack in the nation.”
The initiative prove to be a success with 1,019,232 meals packed, 69,872 bags of food, 130,943 pounds of food, 3,539 boxes of food, 288 meals per box, and 48 bags per box.
“We are very grateful for all of today’s volunteers and extremely proud of the results from today’s Million Meal Pack in partnership with State Farm,” said Steve Koonin, CEO of the Atlanta Hawks and State Farm Arena. “We understand that it is a huge undertaking to tackle food insecurity throughout Atlanta, and we believe that this one-day community service initiative will make an incredible impact and also inspire our communities throughout metro Atlanta.”
As part of the 2021-22 regular season, the Hawks Foundation and State Farm presented a check of $122,000 to the Atlanta Community Food Bank as an effort to help combat childhood hunger and fight against food insecurity throughout metro Atlanta. The ‘Good Neighbor Giveback’ campaign raised $100 for every point the Hawks scored over 100 in each game during the 2021-22 regular season (originally up to $100,000) and was generously extended from State Farm.
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