07/14/2023
Each day this week, 1 of our 5 DataLab projects will be taking over our Instagram. Today we introduce our Food Security project:
Feeding Futures: Harnessing Data for Zero Hunger on the South Cumberland Plateau
Over 34 million people face food insecurity in the US, including 1 in 8 children. In the South Cumberland region in Middle Tennessee, the food insecurity ratio for kids is even more alarming: 1 in 3. The South Cumberland Summer Meal Program (SCSMP) aims to fight hunger during the most vulnerable time for kids - in the summer, when schools don’t provide lunches - and has served over 110,000 meals since 2015. One of the challenges the program faces is the difficulty in predicting accurately ahead of time the quantity of meals needed every week for every site. As a result, a significant percent of meals ordered go to waste and are also not reimbursed by the USDA, which has a negative impact on the funds available for the following year’s program. To address this problem, the data science project is analyzing the data, gathering insights, and developing a versatile predictive tool using historical data, weather conditions, site locations, population, and local events to enable more accurate meal orders and efficient operations for the program. This will contribute towards reducing the number of food insecure families in the areas SCSMP serves, and also ultimately to the UN's Sustainable Development Goal: Zero Hunger.
