Madison Ends Hunger, a service project led by the Madison High School Interact Club in partnership with Madison Rotary, has collected food every other Saturday since July 2020. The donations help stock the pantry at the First Baptist Church of Madison.
The effort grew out of an April 2020 appeal, when the pandemic made obtaining food difficult for many families. Interact Club students asked the community to help fill a bus with donations. Residents responded with enough food to fill a box truck, inspiring the students to build an ongoing collection program.
Six years later, more than 200 Madison families have contributed over 7,500 bags of food, with an estimated value of $250,000. More than 75 students, Rotary members and friends have volunteered to drive collection routes. According to the organizers, volunteers have never missed a pickup across 156 scheduled Saturdays.
That consistency has made the project more than an occasional food drive. Each collection connects participating households with a local pantry, turning individual donations into a dependable community effort.
The project also helped the pantry become part of the Interfaith Food Pantry Network, which provides eggs, milk and fresh produce. Those items complement the food collected through Madison Ends Hunger and help the pantry serve local families experiencing food insecurity.
For the Interact Club and Madison Rotary, the results have exceeded the expectations they held when the project began. Students, volunteer drivers and donating families have each played a part in sustaining the effort, showing how a shared response to an urgent need can grow into years of service.
To learn how to participate in Madison Ends Hunger, email madisonendshunger@gmail.com.