MEDIA.

NOVEMBER 29, 2022.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HUNGHRI, Minnesota-Based Nonprofit Unifying the Heartland Through Music, Food, and the Arts to Create a World Free of Hunger

As #GivingTuesday opportunities present themselves, there are many worthy organizations and causes to consider funding. I offer some #ThoughtForFood that serves as a powerful and personal invitation to activate your attention and resources toward ending the human tragedy of hunger and malnutrition. How can you make a difference? Support our newly formed global nonprofit called HUNGHRI, of which I am one of three co-founders.  HUNGHRI is shorthand for: Heartland Unified Now Global Hunger Relief Initiative.

The origin of HUNGHRI comes from several business and community leaders asking, “What can we do here in Minnesota to address the global food crisis? Could we do something really big like hosting a big concert to raise awareness, to educate people in our communities, and to raise funds to provide relief to those in need?”

HUNGHRI is the response to those questions. We founded HUNGHRI with the intent of using music, arts, and events to amplify the severity of the food crisis here at home;  not to be a “one-and-done” concert, but rather to become a sustaining organization that can hold events and work in our communities over the next decade to achieve ZERO HUNGER across the globe. 

How does your donation make a difference on Giving Tuesday? Your funds support HUNGHRI’s general operations, exclusively for exempt purposes. What does that mean? You are joining the HUNGHRI movement and getting in on the ground floor as we bring this organization to life. Our inaugural event bringing together food, music, art, and community is planned for May 2023 around World Hunger Day in the Twin Cities.

We know that one event cannot solve the global hunger situation, but food, music, and the arts can bring us together to serve a higher purpose. They can motivate us to work across divided communities and find solutions to a common problem that every community faces: hunger and malnutrition. We plan to hold HUNGHRI-themed events across the Heartland and up and down the Mississippi River States to highlight the importance of this region to the global food supply.

As founders, we extended the idea of doing something really “big” beyond Minnesota to the entire American Heartland because of the critical role this region plays in feeding the world. Our farmers supply food importing nations with commodities and produce that move across the Heartland to river elevators where the food is loaded on barges that travel down the Mississippi River. The headwaters of the Mississippi begin here in Minnesota and the mouth of the river feeds the world out of Louisiana. The US is the world’s top food exporter, and as reported in October 2022 in The Guardian, the Mississippi River Basin accounts for 92% of US agricultural exports.

According to the UN World Food Programme, acute food insecurity is on pace for a record high of 349 million people globally this year, an increase of 200 million people compared to pre-pandemic levels. 49 million people across nearly 50 countries are in a state of emergency and acute food insecurity. Nearly two billion in the world are food insecure. That’s one in four people, globally. One in four! In fact, here in the US, acute food insecurity is currently affecting more than 13.5 million Americans this year, of that, 5 million of those are children.

With a terrific group of doers, including Kate Reschenberg and John Klinkenberg, along with partners like Times Square Live Media, we are challenging the status quo. Once our organization is at full speed, we will emphatically invest in humanitarian relief organizations and local on-the-ground nonprofit partners that actively address hunger and malnutrition to ultimately end unnecessary human suffering.

Investing in ending hunger tomorrow is not an option. We must alleviate human suffering today! We must disrupt the issues causing food insecurity and invest today in order to shore up long-term solutions for the future of agriculture. The livelihood of future generations depends on it.

So, as you ponder how to contribute to vital needs on #GivingTuesday, I encourage you to donate to HUNGHRI and to learn more about how you can integrate HUNGHRI into your daily life. For most of those reading this, we do not worry where our next meal will come from. This is our vision for everyone: a world where every human being can live without fear of knowing when they can eat again.

Every human being deserves the opportunity to wake up knowing they have access to energy sources that secure human potential. Help us make this happen and join the HUNGHRI movement.

-Devry, co-founder and CEO