Feeding the ‘Trudes of Wyoming

Last week, the Wyoming Hunger Initiative [WHI] held the North Regional Summit. First Lady of Wyoming Jennie Muir-Gordon told a powerful story about her family and what inspired her to launch the WHI in October 2019 with the goal of eradicating childhood hunger in Wyoming.

 Her mother, Gertrude, was living in Vienna, Austria during World War II and food was scarce — really scarce. After the war ended, the Russians rolled to the city, putting it under Soviet occupation. Sadly, finding food continued to be a challenge and going hungry was a daily reality. 

Gertrude married, had a child and moved to the United States with her husband, an American GI. Together, they had nine more children, for whom Gertrude worked hard to make sure they never went hungry. Her stories of starving as a child made a deep impact on her daughter, Jennie, so much so that she started the WHI when she became Wyoming’s First Lady. 

With tears in her eyes, the First Lady told her mom’s story to the attendees of the summit. She ended by thanking the group for, “Feeding the little ‘Trudes in Wyoming.” 

There were tears in all our eyes as we listened and imagined how horrible it must have been to find food every single day. But that fight has become a reality in Wyoming — did you know 86,000 people in our state struggle with food insecurity? 

The WHI has made a difference for people of all ages across Wyoming. There are many ways they help children, veterans and senior citizens. Their programs include grants, Food from the Fields and Food from the Farm/Ranch. The Angel Program helps alleviate school lunch debt while The Grow a Little Extra program provides free seed packets at UW extension offices for local growers to sow in the spring. At harvest time, those producers are encouraged to bring the extra produce they don’t need to their local UW offices to share with their local communities for free.

There are many ways you can help feed our ‘Trudes. Visit
 www.nohungerwyo.org and your local food pantry to learn more.