WILL-TV's broadcast of Growing Hope Against Hunger will feature a new Muppet, Lily, who is experiencing food insecurity. Photo courtesy of Sesame Workshop.

At least 79,000 people in eastern Illinois, and another 105,000 people in central Illinois, don’t have enough to eat, according to a study by Feeding America. An increasing number of people are seeking help. WILL-TV and radio will feature programs on Nov. 15 about responses to the problem of hunger, both around the nation and in Illinois.

At 7 p.m. on WILL-TV, Growing Hope Against Hunger, a family program from Sesame Workshop, features a story about Elmo as he learns how the struggle against hunger affects a friend, a new Muppet named Lily. The program also features documentary segments with four real families who have experienced the challenge of hunger and are finding strategies and resources that help.

Next at 8 p.m. on WILL-TV and online at will.illinois.edu, Illinois Public Media’s David Inge will host Growing Hope Against Hunger: An Illinois Response live in the studio with a panel of people in central Illinois who are working to fight hunger as well as a studio audience of others involved in the effort through both faith-based organizations, non-profits, businesses, or government programs.

Interspersed within the live studio show will be video stories from Illinois looking at the work of the Wesley Evening Food Pantry in Urbana; at the way the SNAP program (formerly known as food stamps) works in central Illinois and the stigma attached to SNAP that deters people from applying; and at efforts to combat rural hunger, including a mobile food pantry run by the Central Illinois Foodbank in Springfield.

Panelists will include Tracy Smith, state director of Feeding Illinois; Donna Camp, director of the Wesley Evening Food Pantry; Craig Gundersen, professor of Agricultural & Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois; Brittani Evans, outreach coordinator for McLean County SNAP; and Kristy Gilmore, manager of food and agency relations, Central Illinois Foodbank.

Viewers are invited to join the conversation by participating in an hour-long, live, online interactive chat at 9 p.m. at willconnect.org/projects/hunger after the broadcast.

Earlier in the day on Nov. 15, at 11:06 a.m. on WILL-AM 580's Focus, host David Inge will talk to Tracy Smith, state director of Feeding Illinois, and Mike Meece, administrator of the Midwest Foodbank in Peoria and Bloomington, about their work to overcome hunger.