Tyson Foods, Inc., has been a sponsor of the Southern Heritage Classic for about six years. This is the fifth year of giving a large amount of food and protein to the Mid-South Food Bank and Libby Lawson is ecstatic about it.

Libby Lawson (left) teamed with Donnie Smith, vice president for poultry and prepared foods, and another Tyson employee in this food donation effort. (Courtesy photo)

Lawson is vice president of media and community relations for Tyson. And while food donations is her job, it’s also her passion.

“People are hungry in this country of plenty,” said Lawson. “It makes absolutely no sense to me. Maybe it’s economic, maybe it’s more profitable to have this situation the way that it is. I still can’t imagine how that can be when you can look at the benefits of how much more progressive the United States could be if people aren’t hungry.”

Tyson’s primary philanthropic focus is hunger relief. Over the last 8 years, Tyson has donated over 68 million pounds to food banks across the United States.

“We know about homelessness. We know about illnesses and those types of things and they are a big problem, said Lawson. “But people don’t talk about the fact people are hungry. It is a problem, it is a major problem over the last couple of years because of the economy.”

Lawson notes that other companies give food and she openly dreams of ways such companies and individuals could take that giving to a whole another level.

This past week, Tyson brought 15 tons of chicken to the local Food Bank, as the company has done for the past 5 years.

“You would think that much meat, which is roughly about 35-40 thousand pounds, would go a long way. In talking to the director at the Food Bank, she said it might last a week, where before it might have lasted two or three weeks (in the past.)”

The bigger issue, said Lawson, is “how do we – me, you and all of us as individuals as well as companies – make a difference with hunger in the United States. How do we stop this? How do we stem it?”

For Lawson, this is part of personal passion. She lived in DC for about 25 years. Five years ago she moved to NW Arkansas to work for Tyson. She used to work for a radio station owned by Howard University. The station created Project Harvest with a woman who worked with a nonprofit and had a passion to feed all the people in DC who did not have food. That was about 1979 and the effort is ongoing.

That woman’s effort touched Lawson in a lasting way.

“She worked until she was close to 96 or 97. I just admired her. While she was rough around the edges, her message got through wherever she went. She made a difference. That’s really where my interest in this whole thing began.”

All these years later, Lawson is convinced that hunger problem is solvable.

“You can’t just give away free food and expect people not to be hungry anymore,” she said. “There has to be a more comprehensive answer. People have to want to do it.”