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Shawn Moore, executive director of Caregivers on the Homefront, is reminding people that November is National Caregiver Month.
“We have to look past that veteran to include their entire family in this holistic view of support,” Moore said.
On Wednesday, Moore and many others helped do just that by distributing 400 boxes filled with pounds of food, care products, toys and books at the Kansas Speedway.
Moore partnered with Feed the Children out of Oklahoma and Russell Stovers, who say in Kansas, 1 in 10 families struggle with food insecurity.
The groups say as we head into the holiday season, that need becomes greater, so they're focused on helping veterans, first responders and their families.
Moore says a fixed income and a single-family income can contribute to high rates of food insecurity.
“We know our economy is really tough right now,” Moore said. "They need a little bit of help from the community with food.”
She said it’s necessary to provide help for veterans and families of first responders.
“I don’t think we oftentimes think about the food insecurity in this population because we think, as a nation, we must be supporting them and supporting them well," he said. "It’s not quite the case, so we do need boxes and boxes of food; these boxes will feed 400 families.”
Shannon Moore created Caregivers on the Homefront, which supports mental health and wellness of veteran's family members and caregivers.
"My husband is a veteran; he completed seven years in the Army and seven tours to Afghanistan. I know that life," she said. “My husband came home with some invisible wounds of war, and that’s tough for the families, and oftentimes we don’t give the support that we need.”
While passing out food, they wanted to drive the point of recognizing our veteran's sacrifices and their families who give just as much.
Twenty-two thousand pounds of food was distributed to a long line of families.
“Not that we shouldn’t see our veterans, but we have to look past them to their families too,” Moore. said.
Mary Wilson, who lives in Excelsior Springs, was one of the recipients and talked about the importance of receiving support.
“On the back burner, there’s the wives that do a lot behind closed doors and they don’t see that as often," Wilson said.
Her husband, James Wilson, served for many years and was injured in Iraq.
“A lot of us are living on budgets that we can barely keep up with our household, so when we get assistance like this, it really does do a lot of help for us, so it’s less that we have to really worry about," Wilson said. “When they get the extra assistance and caregivers get this assistance, it’s an impact that nobody else sees — just remember those that you don’t see every day.”
