Second Harvest Heartland to Host "Bring Your Child to Serve Day"

ST. PAUL, Minn., Jan. 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Second Harvest Heartland is offering working parents and their children an opportunity to volunteer together on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which over the past several years has become an important day of community service throughout the nation. "Bring Your Child to Serve Day" is a platform for Second Harvest Heartland to generate awareness around the issue of hunger with youth, promote the value of community service to youth, and, ultimately, increase youth volunteerism.

Based on the recently released Volunteering and Civic Life in America report, which states that 37 percent of Minneapolis-St. Paul residents volunteered through organizations in 2011, the highest rate among those in the country's 51 largest metro areas, Rob Zeaske, CEO of Second Harvest Heartland, believes the effort to target youth with volunteer opportunities will be well received.

"Minnesotans have a well deserved reputation for giving back to their community through donations of time and money," said Zeaske. "Through 'Bring Your Child to Serve Day,' we hope to tap into that philanthropic spirit in our young people by giving them a meaningful volunteer opportunity that will encourage life-long support of hunger relief."

Bremer Bank, a longtime supporter of community service with a keen interest in hunger relief, is sponsoring the event. Bremer employees and their children will be among those volunteering.

"At Bremer Bank, we foster a company culture of service and commitment to the communities in which we live and work through volunteerism," said Jill Bickford, executive vice president and branch director for Bremer Bank. "We are pleased to again partner with Second Harvest Heartland in taking action to end hunger by supporting 'Bring Your Child to Serve Day.'"

"Bring Your Child to Serve Day" is taking place from 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. on Monday, January 21, at Second Harvest Heartland West, located at 6325 Sandburg Road in Golden Valley. More than 400 youth ages eight and older and their parents will work in shifts sorting and packing food for the nearly 600,000 individuals in need of hunger relief in our community.

To register for the event, visit www.2harvest.org.

About Bremer Financial Corporation
Bremer Financial Corporation is a privately held, $8.3 billion regional financial services company, jointly-owned by its employees and the Otto Bremer Foundation (OBF). Founded in 1943 by Otto Bremer, the company is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota and provides a comprehensive range of banking, investment, trust and insurance services to locations in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. OBF uses its share of dividends to distribute charitable grants to Bremer bank communities. In 2011, more than $30 million in charitable donations were given across the Bremer footprint and employees donated more than 100,000 volunteer hours to their communities.

About Second Harvest Heartland
Second Harvest Heartland, the Upper Midwest's largest hunger-relief organization, works to reinvent hunger relief through leadership and innovation so as to help those who are hungry today and provide the means for those who are hungry to be fed tomorrow. Pioneering partnerships and programs have paved the way for Second Harvest Heartland to distribute more than 76 million pounds of grocery products last year to hungry seniors, families, and children through nearly 1,000 non-profit member agencies and programs serving 59 counties in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. For more information, visit 2harvest.org or call 651.484.5117.

SOURCE Second Harvest Heartland