USING DATA TO CLOSE THE MEAL GAP

Hunger-Free Minnesota is using data to drive initiatives that it anticipates will add 60 million new meals to the state’s hunger-relief system by 2015 through innovative strategies in emergency food system capacity, rescuing surplus food, and enrollment and utilization of federal nutrition programs. At the heart of its strategy is a new geo-analytics tool, called Community Close-Up, that provides insight about the relative severity of missing meals and relative utilization of anti-hunger resources at the local community level. The tool can locate the census tracts where the state’s hungriest residents live and approximate how many meals they are missing. By identifying the highest concentrations of missing meals, Hunger-Free Minnesota can prioritize its investment, and the state’s many hunger-fighting organizations can prioritize their efforts and collaborate more effectively.

 

Source: National Foundation to End Senior Hunger, 4/16/14, Using Data