Putting together food packages.
About two dozen Des Moines police officers and Iowa State Patrol troopers packaged Thanksgiving meals at the Food Bank of Iowa in Des Moines this morning in an event called “Arrest Hunger”.
It took about 20 minutes for officers to assemble the 150 meal kits that food will be distributed to families in need in all of Iowa’s 99 counties, plus a couple dozen more in Des Moines. Colonel Jeff Ritzman is the Chief of the Iowa State Patrol says it’s their way to help out.
“If we’re able to help with food security, I think there’s a great trickle effect to that and everybody benefits,” Ritzman says. Law officers raised the funds for the food and he says it is an opportunity to show law enforcement in a different role in the community.
The “Arresting Hunger” crew.
“Law enforcement has been portrayed in a negative light in some ways and this is really an opportunity for us to do something that everyone sees as positive,” according to Ritzman.
The kits include a frozen turkey and other traditional Thanksgiving fixings.
(Reporting by Clay Masters, Iowa Public Radio/ Photos courtesy of the Food Bank of Iowa)