POCATELLO — Phil Meador Subaru, through its Share the Love event, recently presented the Idaho Foodbank with a check for $17,500, providing the organization with money that will help disadvantaged people within the local community.

“When they first reached out and said they would like us to be their charity of choice for this event, we were completely honored,” said Kia Shaw, the Idaho Foodbank eastern branch manager. “It’s amazing when local businesses want to step up and fill a need that they are seeing, especially in our community where our food insecurity rate is increasing.”

Shaw continued, “The cost of living goes up and wages are not following that right now. We have a lot of new families who are experiencing food insecurity for the very first time. Being able to receive this donation has a huge impact on the neighbors that we’re serving every single month.”

A total of 94 cents of every dollar donated to the food bank goes back into local programs that help provide individuals and families with food nutrition education classes and access to additional resources.

“We can be great experts at moving food and getting food to neighbors, but we also know that our neighbors are facing other issues like health concerns, housing concerns and transportation concerns, and we partner with experts in those fields to help bring those together,” Shaw said. “Part of this donation goes to help with that and connecting those dots for our neighbors so that all of those resources are in one location, instead of across the city.”

Shaw continued, “Food insecurity doesn’t have a face, it doesn’t have a specific look or specific place it lives. It can happen to anybody at any given time. It’s really important to have these continuous partnerships with the community, because we really want to make sure that anybody who’s in this situation has the help that they need.”

Thanks to the donation of families like the Meadors, families across eastern Idaho will have better access to food, essentials and resources that will improve their lives. This is the largest donation in Meador’s 10-year history and the monetary funds will help feed over 200,000 people a month in Idaho communities, most of them children.

“I would really encourage anyone that has been thinking about helping out to get a hold of the local branch, whether it’s volunteering, setting up your own local food drive, or just by making a donation,” said Brian Johnston, the general sales manager of Phil Meador Subaru.