WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL)—Did you know that one in six adults is food insecure, in fact just in the service area that the Wichita Falls Area Food Bank provides for, more than 37-thousand people are food insecure?

That’s why we here at KFDX have partnered with the food bank and local United Supermarkets to kick off the Tackle Hunger Campaign, a friendly competition between Team Franklinville and Team Sporter to see who can collect the most nonperishable foods, which will end on February 13th.

Normally with campaigns like this, one thousand pounds is considered a pretty big success, and with nearly two weeks to go, Team Franklinville has collected 220 pounds of food and Team Sporter is sitting right at 178 pounds, totaling 398 pounds, and food bank officials are confident they’ll reach one thousand in no time.

“Hunger doesn’t take a day off,” Interim Executive Director for the WFAFB, David O’neil said.

But unfortunately, due to the weather, the Wichita Falls Area Food Bank had to take a couple of days off, so O’Neil said they’ve been playing catch up.

“The challenge over the last couple of days is with volunteers because a lot of our partner pantries and agencies, they need volunteers to be open and when the weather is bad it’s difficult to get volunteers to come in and able to open and serve the clients that need the help,” O’Neil said.

And in a huge effort to feed those clients, the Tackle Hunger Campaign was kicked off.

“We certainly would encourage everybody to go out, go to any United here in Wichita Falls or in Burkburnett and place as much food, cans into the containers that are out front and we’ll see who wins,” O’Neil said.

And so far Team Franklinville is in the lead with close to 250 pounds of food collected and with a little less than two weeks away, O’Neil believes they’ll meet their goal.

“We live in a very giving community and we know that the community will continue to give in a meaningful way and we’ll be able to use that food to help people feed their families,” O’Neil said.

Showing that no matter which team wins, the real winners are the clients.

If you’d like to volunteer for the Wichita Falls Area Food Bank, click here.