Curious what 2,000 pounds of meat looks like? That's the amount of food organizations that work to combat food insecurity and provide food to at-risk populations combined to bring to people across Southeast Nebraska Tuesday afternoon.

Thanks to a donation from Triumph Foods out of St. Joseph, Missouri, a U-haul truck was driven to Fairbury's community building Tuesday after, and it was stuffed full with about 300 boxes of pork fillets weighing 2,000 pounds - a literal ton of meat.

Working together with leaders of local organizations in Fairbury Tuesday, executives from the Southeast Nebraska Collaborative delivered this meat that will now be distributed to at-risk people across this part of the state.

"We’re trying to help seniors and families in need prepare for winter. That’s the big picture. Beyond that, we’re trying to work with local non-profits to help their population prepare for winter or to provide immediate needs for their food," said Collena Laschanzky, executive director of the Southeast Nebraska Collaborative. "Beyond that, we’re working with the Center for Rural Affairs to try to connect food producers with businesses and consumers in our local service areas."

One of those orgs, the Blue Rivers Area Agency on Aging, said this 2,000-pound donation of meat should help to provide each of the 500-600 people in their service area with enough food for at least three full meals.

"This will be a great asset for us. The need for food in our rural areas is increasing, and so are the food costs. So anything we can get that is donated is a tremendous value to our organization," said Carmen McKeever, BRAAA's nutrition manager. "We are non-profit, and we run totally on donations and contributions. Many people are finding that this the only meal that they get is the one that is served by one of our senior centers."

The amount of meat in each box varies, but in total 1,000 pounds covers about 126 boxes, the Collaborative said. Adding in about 50 boxes in total split between two churches in Fairbury that were identified as potential bridges to vulnerable people in the local area nets a total of about 300 boxes of food packed into a U-haul and then loaded into vans for distribution to churches, senior centers, and other similar organizations, not just in Fairbury but all throughout Southeast Nebraska.

BRAAA covers eight counties in this part of the state, and some of the boxes delivered Tuesday will stay in Fairbury, Diller and Steele City; some are in transit west to Hebron, Davenport and Deshler, and the rest will be headed east to Beatrice and Wymore, and some as far east as Table Rock and Falls City.

"We’ve often said the BRAAA is the best-kept secret in our area," McKeever said. "We work on getting these people to our senior centers, we work very closely with volunteers, all sectors, to get this food out to these people. So this will be an absolute blessing for us to have the use of this meat at this time."  

Leaders with the Collaborative said they were motivated to act after hearing a presentation last week from an expert on the impact of food insecurity in the state - distributing this meat to like-minded organizations and, by extension, people in need, is part of their way to combat that crisis.

"This is so far outside of our normal wheelhouse," Laschanzky said. "We were working with the Center for Rural Affairs, they had talked about the shortage of protein and meat in this area, so we said, if we can help get some seniors’ freezers filled, if we can help some families in need...we didn’t know that we’d end up with 12,000 pounds [in total] to distribute, we thought we'd do a couple thousand!"

We'll have more on this story and how these groups are working to combat food insecurity locally and across the state, later this week on NCN.