PITTSBURG, Kan. — Arvest Bank employees spent part of Friday tending hot dogs on the grill in an effort to help a local food pantry.

“We are raising money for our food partner here in town, which is Wesley House,” said Arvest Bank Branch Sales Manager Angela Karlinger. “This is the Arvest Million Meals campaign that we do every year in April and May and this is our 16th year doing that so the money we are raising today goes straight to our local food partner for food insecurities in our own community.”

Money raised through the end of May is to support over 70 food partners, including Wesley House, an outreach ministry of the First United Methodist Church. Since its creation, the Pittsburg Million Meals campaign has donated around $16,000 to the Crawford County area while nationwide it has helped provide 28 million meals, collecting more than $5.1 million in donations.

“We have 14 branches in 11 different communities, so we have a lot of food partners,” said Arvest Bank Community Marketing Manager Tera Lankard. “Because, you know, the money in Lockwood (Mo.) stays in Lockwood and in Monett (Mo.) it stays in Monett and Pittsburg stays in Pittsburg.”

“It’s very important (to give back),” added Karlinger. “That’s one of the major things for Arvest to do is to give back to our communities to have them thrive where we are at. We want that to happen in our communities, and this is just one small way of us doing that ... The campaign goes through the very last day of May. The grill event is specific to today ... We’ll be raising money at our branch all month long so come in and see us. We’ve got other events going on inside the branch.”

To donate or for more information, visit the local branch at 2313 S. Rouse St. in Pittsburg or donate online by visiting arvest.com/millionmeals.

This reporting is made possible, in part, by the Support Local Journalism Project Fund. Learn more at: southeastkansas.org/Localnews.