Iowa Soybean Research Center

in collaboration with the Iowa Soybean Association

ISRC Hosts Fifth Annual Meals from the Heartland Event

October 15, 2025
Group of 60 volunteers in front of a Meals from the Heartland truck.
More than 60 ISU volunteers participated in the ISRC’s fifth annual Meals from the Heartland event, sponsored by Cargill.
Above, ISRC staff delivers 420 meals to the Agronomy CARES student food pantry.
Above, ISRC staff delivers 420 meals to the Agronomy CARES student food pantry.

The ISRC hosted its fifth annual Meals from the Heartland food-packaging event on August 1, 2025. More than 60 ISU students, faculty and staff packaged 38,600 meals in two and a half hours at ISU’s Hansen Agriculture Student Learning Center. Many thanks to our volunteers and to Cargill who has sponsored the event each year with a generous monetary donation to cover the cost of the ingredients of the meals, which contain soy protein. 

The ISRC hosts the event in August to celebrate Soybean Month in Iowa. Meals from the Heartland works with teams of volunteers from local organizations to package meals for delivery to food insecure people locally, across the U.S. and around the world. This year, some of the meals will stay in the Ames and Des Moines areas as well as going to Haiti, Honduras and Ukraine. The Ames locations include food pantries at ISU and in downtown Ames.

3 photos showing volunteers packaging meals.
At left, the purple team sets up to help package meals. Center, volunteer Gelin Gil, ISU Foundation, holds up one of the packaged meals. At right, volunteers formed assembly lines to package more than 38,000 meals in two and a half hours.