Record Week in Food Distribution

During the week of June 6th through June 10th the food bank had its biggest week ever in food being distributed into the community. We shipped just over 1,000,000 pounds of food. Our normal week is between 500,000 to 700,000 pounds. Remember each pound represents approximately one meal if you have the right nutritional balance of items. Congratulations to the entire staff at the food bank on reaching to new heights in helping our neighbors.

As I have indicated in the past, the need for food in the community really does not slow down in the summer months. With school breakfast and lunch programs shut down, many kids turn to alternate agencies and community centers for support. Please keep us in your donation plans year round.

Board of Directors

This past Thursday we held our June Board of Directors meeting followed by our annual dinner which included many members of our Advisory Council. This meeting traditionally is the session where new officers for the food bank are voted into office. Our out going President is Bill Nord. Bill has served as President for the last two years and I can’t say enough about the leadership he provided to the board and to me personally. As Executive Director I report to the board but on a day in day out basis I work most closely with the President. Bill has been directly involved on a daily basis as we have progressed through the merger discussions with Westside Food Bank. Prior to his retirement from Wells Fargo Bank, he spent many years involved with acquisitions and mergers at the bank. His experience and counsel through our current merger process has been invaluable. During our dinner meeting, I presented Bill with the “Golden Cornucopia” award recognizing his two years of exemplary service to the food bank as President. While his term has ended as President, he will remain an active member of the board.

The newly elected officers and members of the Executive Committee for St Mary’s Food Bank include, Barry McBride as President, Carol McElroy as Vice President, Don Breiland as Secretary, Jon Ginty as Treasurer and two at large members who are Beverly Hart and Dale Rich.

Currently, we have an incredible amount of activities on our plate at the food bank. I know for certain that our newly elected officers and the entire board will help maintain our focus on our mission of feeding the hungry in our community.

BHHS Legacy Foundation Grant

We recently received notification from the BHHS Legacy Foundation that we have been awarded a $30,000 grant for use with our Community Kitchen “Heat & Eat” meal program. Receiving this award is outstanding news! What it is designed to do is enable our agency partners to purchase frozen entrees, which have been prepared by our students at our Community Kitchen program, that they can then serve to their clients at the agency’s kitchen location. Many of our agencies are very small and don’t have the resources to apply for this type of grant to help support their organization. By us going through the process on their behalf we have created a triple win. The agency wins because they can now offer new items to the individuals and families who they serve, our Community Kitchen program wins because they now have a revenue stream to help fund a portion of the expenses for the program and the food bank wins because we can use the additional funding to help expand the Community Kitchen program without pulling resources from other programs. The agencies are currently charged $7 for a tray which serves 18-20 portions and now they can draw the funding from the Legacy grant. This minimal cost is designed to cover the packaging cost and cost of the ingredients we need to buy. The number of entrees offered give our students a chance to learn the preparation processes involved with a variety of foods.

A BIG THANKS GOES OUT TO THE BHHS LEGACY FOUNDATION!!!!

Act of Kindness

While visiting the Goodwill emergency box distribution site on National Hunger Awareness Day, I saw something occur that was pretty special. The amazing thing is it happened not once but three times. Folks from the America West reservations center were on site as our volunteers to help load the boxes into the recipient’s cars. While I was there, a young mom and her child walked up and presented one of the AW employees her certificate for the food box. The AW employee grabbed a box and asked the women where her car was parked. She told him she did not have one and had walked a couple of blocks to get to the distribution site. Without hesitation the AW employee volunteered to load the box, the women and her child into his personal car and drive her to her home. What an incredible act of kindnes. As I said, I saw this happen three times involving three different AW employees. So next time you are making a AW reservation, remember you might be talking with one of the folks who really went above and beyond for a neighbor in need.

What a wonderful day at the food bank....

What a day we have had at the food bank….. In honor of National Hunger Awareness Day, we held six major community distributions where we distributed 2,400 food boxes to needy families in the central Phoenix area between 7 and 9 AM. Those distributions represented enough food to create almost 30,000 meals worth of food. Then we had a program here at the food bank, which recognized many of our major food donors. There was an over flow crowd of folks representing our agencies, volunteers, donors, government officials, food industry leadership, our Board of Directors and Staff. We received proclamations from the Mayor of Phoenix and the State of Arizona recognizing the efforts of St Mary’s. Our Operations, Programs and Community Relations staff did an incredible job. We had TV coverage from channels 3, 5, 10, 12,15 and 33 and also had radio hits from 5 major stations. Increased awareness was one of our objectives along with moving more food into the community. We accomplished both with flying colors.

Today….we made a very strong statement that we can win the battle against hunger in our
community because the community is behind us in our efforts.

Thanks to all for making National Hunger Awareness Day 2005 a day to remember!