volunteer woman handing out peanut butter and pasta at CARE mobile

  • Innovative partnership enters its 5th year.
  • An anticipated 60-70,000 people will be served at 71 distributions this summer.
  • 170,990 Marion County residents are food insecure.
  • Over 46,000 Marion County children are hungry.
  • In the past three years, more than 170,000 people have received food at a CARE Mobile Pantry distribution.
  • Marion County Sheriff’s Office will join the program this year.

Community Action Relief Effort (CARE) was first established in 2015 in partnership with the City of Indianapolis. In coordination with Gleaners, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD), the Indianapolis Fire Department (IFD), the Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services Department (IEMS) and other public safety agencies worked to identify six key “intersections” where limited food access impacted the health and safety of the surrounding neighborhoods.

These intersections – where residents work, play, attend school and church – are at a much higher risk for crime, poor educational achievement, unemployment, mental health issues, drug abuse and feelings of isolation and hopelessness. Hunger is a symptom of poverty that can directly impact some of these issues, particularly educational achievement and criminal activity, much of which is centered on securing money to buy food.

In 2017, the City and Gleaners launched a pilot CARE Bags program in IMPD East District, enabling officers to provide sacks of nutritious groceries directly to individuals and families they are called upon to serve who are food-insecure. That program expanded to North District last year. Through CARE, Gleaners and the City of Indianapolis seek to alleviate the effects of hunger and food insecurity on families who are already struggling.

Thanks to the support of the City of Indianapolis, IMPD, IFD, EMS, and new this year, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, we strongly enter our 5th year of serving the City’s most vulnerable neighborhoods.