This week, ICMIF member EMC Insurance Companies (USA) announced that it will donate USD 525,000 in additional pandemic relief funding through the EMC Insurance Foundation to assist families and small businesses struggling due to COVID-19. The donations will go to two organisations:

• USD 450,000 to Feeding America for school food pantries and other child hunger programmes.
• USD 75,000 to support the Small Business Recovery Grant Program offered through a consortium of public and private entities in Central Iowa.

“Families, schools and small businesses are vital to successful communities, and we knew we wanted to assist them as they face the impacts and hardships of COVID-19,” said Scott Jean (pictured), EMC President and CEO. “At EMC, we’re dedicated to serving our communities and donating to these two worthy nonprofit organisations allows us to do that.”

The Feeding America funds will be directed to network food banks in six states: Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, North Carolina, Minnesota and Nebraska. Last year, Feeding America served 142 million meals through its child nutrition programmes. This donation will fund additional meals, reducing food insecurity for children and families.

“The need is even greater this year, with food banks reporting an average of 60 percent increase in demand for food assistance compared to this time last year, and estimates that as many as one in four children may face food insecurity because of this crisis,” said Elizabeth Marquardt, Interim Managing Director of New Partnerships at Feeding America. “Thanks to support like EMC’s, we have sourced and distributed more than three times the number of meals to food banks, compared to this time last year.”

The Small Business Recovery Grant Program is focused on assisting and preserving small businesses, which are the heart and soul of their communities and so important to their local economies. Grants will range from USD 1,000 to USD 10,000.

In addition to the above donations, in early April EMC provided donations to Feeding America to fund food pantries in 18 cities across the USA where the company has offices, as well as to the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines’ Disaster Recovery Fund to support the metro’s most vulnerable populations.

Additionally, EMC team members volunteered their time and materials to make face masks for the Food Bank of Central Iowa, to keep its staff, volunteers and partners safe. Team members could use their Volunteer Time Off benefit for this activity.