“This shows that people care”: Community comes together for 27th annual Share Your Holidays campaign

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - In the 27th year of NBC15′s Share Your Holidays campaign to benefit Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin, the community came together.

Nearly 30,000 pounds of food were collected in barrels throughout the community and sorted into boxes at the Alliant Energy Center for Second Harvest to distribute.

Thanks to generous donors, $350,000 were matched throughout the day by folks who called in or went online to make a donation.

At the end of the night, the final meal reveal showed more than 3.9 million meals were raised to help feed those suffering from food insecurity in Southern Wisconsin.

On John Stofflet’s final Share Your Holidays campaign before he retires, he remembered the humble beginnings of his mother, who like so many in our area, suffered from food insecurity as a child.

“This was always really important to my mother so thanks to all of you who have given over the years, for people just like her and there are so many out there right now,” Stofflet said.

With 1 in 8 children in Southern Wisconsin suffering from hunger, other kids stepped up to help.

“[A volunteer] got a call today from the mother of a 10-year-old girl, she had a bake sale and donated $300 that she earned to our campaign, and really that $300 is $600, from a 10-year-old,” NBC15′s Elizabeth Wadas said.

“It means the world to people, as Mike said so long ago, you’re giving a little bit of light to people who are going through a dark time in their lives,” Stofflet said.

Former NBC15 news anchor and co-founder of Share Your Holidays, the late Mike McKinney, is still a shining light during the campaign, through his mother Barbara who answers phones ever year.

“This shows that people care, many people have gone through challenges in this past year but as john said people step up, they call, they get engaged, whether its $5, $10, or $10,000,” Barbara McKinney said.

NBC15′s goal this year is to reach 5 million meals, you can still help us reach that goal by donating online, or at the grocery store by the end of December.

Thank you to everyone who has already donated and helped make this campaign such a success.

Click here to download the NBC15 News app or our NBC15 First Alert weather app.

Copyright 2022 WMTV. All rights reserved.