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

Minneapolis, MN, November 29, 2022 --(PR.com)-- Founded by Devry Boughner Vorwerk, Kate Reschenberg, and John Klinkenberg, the origin of HUNGHRI comes from business and community leaders asking, “What can we do here in Minnesota to address the global food crisis? Could we do a large-scale event that would drive impact, raise awareness, and educate, all while providing funds to organizations on the ground delivering relief?”

HUNGHRI is the response to those questions. Founded with the goal of using music, arts, and events to amplify the severity of the food crisis here at home and become a sustaining organization that can hold events and work in our communities over the next decade to achieve Zero Hunger across the globe.

HUNGHRI’s inaugural event bringing together food, music, art, and community is planned for May 2023 around World Hunger Day in the Twin Cities.

In regard to the involvement of the Minnesota business community in the fight against hunger, HUNGHRI co-founder and President Kate Reschenberg said, “Minnesota is a hub for global businesses and as such, we have a moral imperative to use our vast resources and ingenuity to address nutrition and food insecurity worldwide.”

While one event cannot solve the global hunger situation, food, music, and the arts can bring people together to find solutions to a problem that every community faces: hunger and malnutrition. They plan to hold HUNGHRI-themed events across the Heartland and up and down the Mississippi River states, highlighting the importance of this region to the global food supply.

Regarding the importance of HUNGHRI’s mission and vision, HUNGHRI co-founder and CEO Devry Boughner Vorwerk said, “Hunger and malnutrition is not only an ‘over-there problem,’ it’s an everywhere problem. We have enough resources to solve hunger today, but there's a misallocation of priorities and capital. HUNGHRI works to remedy that by making hunger every person’s priority. 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.”

HUNGHRI and its founders extended the idea of doing something “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 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.
· 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.

As co-founder and COO John Klinkenberg says, “Growing up in Minnesota, I have seen and felt the impact of the Heartland. We are a community that when called upon can change the world.”