IBJ Podcast: Inside the plan to pack a million meals for food pantries in 24 hours of All-Star Weekend

This is the week of the NBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis, which officially tips off on Thursday and will run through the 73^rd NBA All-Star Game on Sunday night. Over the next week, Indianapolis will be the site of star-studded concerts, exhibition games, fan-friendly activities, multimedia programming and major art installations. For this week’s episode of the podcast, we wanted to focus on a philanthropic feat that deserves to be in someone’s record book. The Indianapolis-based not-for-profit Million Meal Movement is bringing together 6,000 volunteers in Lucas Oil Stadium on Thursday in an attempt to pack 1 million meals for Indiana-based food pantries in a 24-hour period.

For a not-for-profit with such an aspirational name, Million Meal Movement is a surprisingly compact organization. It has five employees, including co-founder Nancy Hintz, who is a full-time executive for another firm in the food and agriculture space. But since Hintz and her husband, Dan, founded the group in 2007, it has packed nearly 35 million meals for food-insecure people. Nancy Hintz is our guest this week, sharing the story of how she and her husband met at Indiana University, the game plan for packing one million meals in one day, and the group’s strategy for simplifying its operations so its impact can have such a wide footprint.

You can find all of IBJ’s coverage of All-Star Weekend at IBJ.com/All-Star.

Click here to find the IBJ Podcast each Monday. You can also subscribe at iTunes, Google Play, Tune In, Spotify and anyplace you find podcasts.

You can also listen to these recent episodes:

IBJ Podcast: Here’s what to see and do during All-Star Weekend

IBJ Podcast: RecycleForce founder on new HQ, hiring ex-offenders and his own story of second chances

IBJ Podcast: Huddling with the Indiana artists painting 24 massive basketballs for All-Star Weekend

IBJ Podcast: New play about Oscar Robertson, historic Crispus Attucks team to debut in Indy

IBJ Podcast: Pete the Planner bullish on 2024 stocks, housing market (with a Constitutional caveat)

IBJ Podcast: Statehouse reporters preview the upcoming legislative session

Looking for another podcast to try? Check out IBJ’s The Freedom Forum with Angela B. Freeman, a monthly discussion about diversity and inclusion in central Indiana’s business community.