When this newsletter went to print, Connecticut was experiencing daytime high temperatures in the mid-teens, coupled with biting winds. That means many families will face what is too frequent a choice; put food on the table or heat their homes. Connecticut, one of the wealthiest states in the nation, is also one of the costliest in which to live. A United Way study found that 27% of Connecticut households are asset limited, income constrained, employed (ALICE). These families earn more than what is considered the poverty level, but still struggle to meet basic needs. The United Way ALICE report says a survival budget for a Connecticut family of four (two adults, one infant and one preschooler) would range from just over $66,000 per year to nearly $74,000 per year, depending on where you live in Connecticut. More than half the jobs in Connecticut paid less than the $20 per hour that would just edge the bottom end of the survival budget range, with most of those jobs paying below $15 per hour. Too many of these families struggle without benefit of any state or federal assistance. According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study, 42% of Connecticut residents who struggle with hunger earn above federal food assistance eligibility levels. The Connecticut Food Bank works with more than 650 member programs to help ease the difficult choices many families in our state are forced to make. Donations to the food bank help us distribute nutritious food to families that would otherwise not have enough. Last year, we distributed enough food for more than 21 million meals. That’s nutritious meals for children; balanced meals for seniors; hot and healthful meals for people visiting shelters and soup kitchens; and meals made possible for veterans who have already given so much in service and deserve more for their sacrifice. Your gifts of money, time and food make those meals possible. And that means fewer families face terrible choices like food or heat. Heat or Eat: The Winter Tradition Nobody Loves WINTER 2018 VOLUME 27, NUMBER 1 CONNECTICUT FOOD NEWS WINTER 2018 CONNECTICUT FOOD NEWS 1 Your gifts of money, time and food make those meals possible. And that means fewer families face terrible choices like food or heat.
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
GROW Program Expands to Serve Older ChildrenAfter identifying the need to support older children not met by other direct services, the Connecticut Food Bank expanded the GROW program to include a new high school site in Stratford, beginning in October.
Using a model similar to the GROW program that serves families with young children, our specially outfitted Grocery On Wheels visits twice monthly during the last period of school. The program, funded by a multi-year grant from our Family Foundation by Stop & Shop, will offer a total of eight workshops on subjects including nutrition, healthy cooking, financial literacy and personal health to approximately 40 students.
More than half of the 900 students at Stratford High School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Students participating in the GROW program are selected based on that eligibility and with the help of school guidance counselors. Some of the students in the program are caring for younger siblings, are in foster care or are homeless. After a recent GROW visit, one student said she was looking forward to making a stir-fry and soup with the fresh produce she received.
We hope this pilot will provide new insight into ways we can serve a population that ages out of other assistance programs.
Many people believe that planned gifts are made
only by the wealthy. The fact is bequests are made by people from every income level and walk of life who want to make a lasting, positive impact on communities or causes important to them. Gifts by will are a wonderful way to support the Connecticut Food Bank and a powerful demonstration to others of your commitment to the hunger relief mission of our work. If you want to learn more about planned giving to support our work, visit ctfoodbank.org/ways-to-give or contact Cheryl Thompson at (203) 741-9207.
Make a Lasting Impact on Hunger With a Planned Gift to the Connecticut Food Bank
HEADQUARTERS ANDDISTRIBUTION CENTER2 Research ParkwayWallingford, CT 06492t/ 203.469.5000f/ 203.469.4871
FAIRFIELDDISTRIBUTION CENTER74 Linwood AvenueFairfield, CT 06824t/ 203.256.1935f/ 203.256.1648
www.ctfoodbank.orgwww.facebook.com/ctfoodbankwww.twitter.com/ctfoodbankwww.instagram.com/ctfoodbank
The Connecticut Food Bank welcomes questions, comments and ideas. All correspondence should be addressed to the Development Department. If your name is incorrect or you are receiving duplicate mailings, please call Sue Moore at (203) 741-9078 or email [email protected].
Connecticut Food Bank is a partner of Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs that provides food and services to more than 46 million people each year.
Walk Against Hunger is April 29 in New Haven
Join us at this year’s Walk Against Hunger, Sunday, April 29, at Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven. Last year more than 500 people turned out to raise awareness of hunger and helped us raise enough funds to provide more than 100,000 meals for people in need.
Visit www.ctfoodbank.org/walk for more information or contact Mia Freedenfeld, Special Events Manager, at (203) 741-9758 or email her at [email protected].
A Lifetime of GivingHarry and Manette Adams have been generous Connecticut Food Bank donors for 23 years. Their gifts were among those that helped to build the Connecticut Food Bank facility in Wallingford, dramatically increasing our capacity to accept, store and distribute food. Sadly, Manette passed away late last year.
This year, Harry surprised us with a gift that was double their previous giving level. Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau visited him at his home at the Whitney Center in Hamden for lunch in early December to extend his personal thanks for Harry’s and his late wife’s, generosity. Said Bernie, “we shared stories over lunch followed by a tour of the wonderful Whitney Center, which is home to more than 400 seniors.”
They talked about Harry’s WWII Air Corps service in 1942 and his degrees received from Yale and his career as a professor and director at Yale Divinity School. At 93 years of age, Harry walks five miles three days a week, has no walker and has no complaints. He’s an avid opera enthusiast and his favorite is La Boheme. “Harry’s famous seven words summarizing the New Testament are: You can love God and your neighbor,” Beaudreau said. Harry Adams’s dedication to feeding his hungry neighbors have put words to action. "There's nothing more important than the food bank," he explained.
Golden Scoop Corporate Championship ReturnsOnce again, teams from businesses and corporations in Connecticut will compete for bragging rights to the most muscle in the fight against hunger. The challenge: scoop the most dried pasta in one hour, filling bags one pound at a time.
Competitors last year included Stop & Shop, Wells Fargo, Webster Bank, Burns & McDonnell, Bristol-Myers Squibb and a team fielded by our Board of Directors. Does your business have what it takes to unseat last year’s champs?
Contact Mia Freedenfeld, Special Events Manager, at (203) 741-9758 or email her at [email protected] to learn more.
UPCOMING EVENTS
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 6
When this newsletter went to print, Connecticut was experiencing daytime high temperatures in the mid-teens, coupled with biting winds. That means many families will face what is too frequent a choice; put food on the table or heat their homes.
Connecticut, one of the wealthiest states in the nation, is also one of the costliest in which to live. A United Way study found that 27% of Connecticut households are asset limited, income constrained, employed (ALICE). These families earn more than what is considered the poverty level, but still struggle to meet basic needs.
The United Way ALICE report says a survival budget for a Connecticut family of four (two adults, one infant and one preschooler) would range from just over $66,000 per year to nearly $74,000 per year, depending on where you live in Connecticut. More than half the jobs in Connecticut paid less than the $20 per hour that would just edge the bottom end of the survival budget range, with most of those jobs paying below $15 per hour.
Too many of these families struggle without benefit of any state or federal assistance. According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study, 42% of Connecticut residents who struggle with hunger earn above federal food assistance eligibility levels.
The Connecticut Food Bank works with more than 650 member programs to help ease the difficult choices many families in our state are forced to make. Donations to the food bank help us distribute nutritious food to families that would otherwise not have enough. Last year, we distributed enough food for more than 21 million meals. That’s nutritious meals for children; balanced meals for seniors; hot and healthful meals for people visiting shelters and soup kitchens; and meals made possible for veterans who have already given so much in service and deserve more for their sacrifice.
Your gifts of money, time and food make those meals possible. And that means fewer families face terrible choices like food or heat.
Heat or Eat: The Winter Tradition Nobody Loves
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 V O L U M E 2 7 , N U M B E R 1
CONNECTICUT FOOD NEWS
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8C O N N E C T I C U T F O O D N E W S 1
Your gifts of money, time and food make
those meals possible. And that means fewer
families face terrible choices like
food or heat.
C O N N E C T I C U T F O O D N E W S2
C O N N E C T I C U T F O O D N E W S2
It’s not just the problem of “heat or eat” that affects food insecure families this winter. Record-breaking cold has disrupted delivery of food assistance by Connecticut Food Bank member programs and by Connecticut Food Bank mobile programs.
“Winter is a challenging time because people spend more on utilities, but it’s also tough for customers to venture out and for programs to open when we have snow storms or extreme cold,” said Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau. “Programs we talked with tell us that, in many cases, they’ve served fewer people than average in the cold snap, which means more people are hungry.”
Connecticut Food Bank Mobile Pantries were hard-hit in the severe cold. The fresh produce so valued by pantry customers was damaged in distributions attempted on the coldest days. Customer attendance also dropped because it was difficult and dangerous to be outside for long. “We have worked hard to find indoor customer waiting areas with our site hosts,” said Connecticut Food Bank Program Manager Frederick Goodman. “While we made great progress on that over the last year, we still found this extreme cold was dangerous for our volunteers and staff at the outdoor sites.”
Volunteer attendance dropped as well in the coldest and snowiest days we experienced in late December and early January. This was true for member programs as well, where the challenging weather kept volunteers away. Maxine Seabrooks of the Brooklawn Seventh Day Adventist Church pantry program in Bridgeport noted that many of her volunteers and clients walk to the pantry on Tuesdays when they are open. On January 2,
Seabrooks said that she had fewer volunteers to help and fewer customers make the trip for food. She noted that they served some people on site and was pleased that they were able to complete delivery of food for those who are home-bound.
Judy Baron at Community Dining Room in Branford noted that they were down by more than 270 meals in late December and early January, over the same period as last year. A late December conversation with Meagan Howard at Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen in New Haven yielded similar experiences. She noted that, in extreme cold, people are reluctant to wait in exposed conditions for food.
Barbara Dublin at Greater Waterbury Interfaith Ministries said that monthly trends overall indicate increased needs over the past year, as we have seen with many other programs. Because their December opening day was prior to the most severe cold, they did not experience the same dip in visits. But Dublin noted that, during the remainder of the month and into early January, they saw increased walk-in visits for emergency assistance, perhaps indicating that people had not been able to secure food from other usual sources.
“We know the weather will break at some point and we can roll our Mobile Pantry trucks again,” Beaudreau said. “But I’m especially worried about the pent-up need that we and our member programs will face as people struggle to pay utility bills this winter. They have had fewer options for food assistance at this critical time. We are bracing for increased food demand from programs and are working hard to make sure that we have the resources to fill those needs.”
Cold Snap Disrupts Service Delivery; Needs Increased
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 4
Local Food Helping Local FamiliesIn December, Laurel Glen Farm in Shelton donated 3,000 pounds of giant, “long neck” butternut squash. The unusual squash is a favorite with restaurants because it provides a high yield. It’s not so easy for a food pantry to store such an item and nearly impossible for a home cook to easily make use of these long neck squash. But we knew that people would welcome this fresh, locally grown produce if they could.
We went to work right away, picking up the donation and bringing it back to cold storage in our Wallingford distribution center, where we have more than 10,000 feet of refrigerated and frozen food storage.
We reached out to our network of member programs with commercial style kitchens to see if they were able to make use of this bounty. Two programs, one in New Haven and one in Stamford, were able to take 850 pounds of the squash between them and prepare it for service in their soup kitchens. To give you a sense of their size, two of the squash provided a delicious side dish for nearly 200 diners at Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen in New Haven, which took 500 pounds of the donation.
Seeking to share this food as widely as possible, we then reached out to a local food processor, Onofrio’s Ultimate Foods in East Haven, which agreed to prepare the squash for use by home cooks. They cleaned, peeled, chopped and bagged
the remaining squash at a below-cost rate. Returned to the Connecticut Food Bank and frozen, the squash is now ready for distribution to a much wider range of food assistance programs and ultimately to individuals and families for whom this type of food might be a beyond-reach luxury.
We could not have acted on this opportunity without your donations. Because of the capacity this building provides, we could accept a donation we might otherwise have had to pass up. The financial donations you make help us to cover the costs of sourcing, transporting, storing and distributing large quantities of food.
Thank you for helping to put fresh, nutritious, satisfying foods on the tables of people who struggle every day to meet basic needs. When you donate to the Connecticut Food Bank, you not only provide for those basic needs, you meet another need as well; reminding neighbors that they are part of a community that cares.
Thank you for helping to put fresh, nutritious, satisfying foods on the tables of people who struggle every day to meet basic needs.
Farms are important partners in the fight against hunger. The Connecticut Food Bank is proud to work with Connecticut farmers to grow solutions to hunger in our state. In addition to helping provide more access to fresh produce, we support the local farm economy by working to move all produce to tables and pantries. And less produce wasted means less of it in landfills. We helped to facilitate the donation of more than 200,000 pounds of local produce last year from nearly 20 area farms. Crops donated included tomatoes, corn, squash, apples and assorted greens.
In a recent survey of our member programs, 96% of respondents indicated they currently distribute produce. “[Our clients] will never complain about having too much produce – sometimes not enough; whatever we are provided with we are able to distribute” was
the comment submitted by one program respondent. Collectively, farmers and the Connecticut Food Bank help our neighbors who are experiencing hunger and promote consumption of healthy, locally grown food.
Farm to Pantry Program Grows Solutions
Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau has been on the road, visiting many members of our network of more than 650 food assistance programs.
After a 41-year career with The Minute Maid Company, a Division of the Coca-Cola Company, retiring as SVP-Operations for North America, New Milford resident Jerry Jones wanted to dedicate his retirement volunteer time to feeding the hungry. Our Daily Bread food pantry in New Milford is the fortunate result of that goal. Jerry was no stranger to hunger relief; while at Coca-Cola, he served on the Board of Directors of Feeding America predecessor America’s Second Harvest.
Jerry was inspired to open the pantry when manufacturer Kimberly-Clark moved its diaper manufacturing operations out of the area to North Carolina in July 2004, laying off 300 workers. The town was quickly overwhelmed trying to meet the basic needs of unemployed workers.
With the support and sponsorship of New Milford United Methodist Church, Jerry organized a team of volunteers and started Our Daily Bread. An early grant from Union Savings Bank was used to build what the pantry calls their “food barn.” Our Daily Bread is a client
choice shopping pantry; customers choose the foods they like and need, rather than receive a pre-packed combination of food items that they may not like or be unable to eat. Preserving the dignity of their customers is a founding principle.
I visited Jerry Jones and his Communications Director Jan Parsons in late September and spoke with them, as well as with several pantry customers. Jerry spoke of their humble beginnings and the commitment of his church to feed the hungry.
With some local financial support and with volunteers from New Milford United Methodist Church, Our Daily Bread feeds 400 to 500 people each month. The pantry is open from 3pm to 6pm each Thursday. The afternoon hours make the pantry more accessible to low-wage earners from New Milford and nearby Danbury. “The word has gotten out that we have eggs and meat,” Jan shared. “That’s why half of our customers travel a good distance to get here.”
Jan and Jerry sat with me in the church lobby as I interviewed six of their food pantry customers. Each had a heart-wrenching story of life challenges that led them to Our Daily Bread.
Tina is a single parent, raising two special needs teenage children. Tina struggles to make ends meet on her minimum wage sales job. She struggles to spend under $50 a week on essential food items, but found herself running out of food at the end of the month, after paying other bills. “We got to the point where we had zero food in the house and we ate nothing for three days. I was desperate. I called my sister for a few cans of soup that I would split with my kids.”
Tina finally went to the director of social services in New Milford, who told her about Our Daily Bread. “It’s been really tough,” Tina told me at that September meeting. “I have two weeks to find a new place to live because my landlord evicted me after I complained about unsafe conditions.”
Tina detailed her difficult financial situation. “I was married, making great money. Had a house and two cars. I didn’t think that a year after my divorce that I would be unemployed and without housing. Everything I thought would be there isn’t any more. It really humbled me. I just need a job that’s going to pay more than minimum wage. If I can get that, things will be better off.”
Tina broke down in tears as she spoke of her 19-year-old son with Autism who used to volunteer every Thursday at the food pantry alongside Hank, a pantry volunteer who died a few years ago. The pantry has been rededicated in his memory. “I really miss Hank. He worked with my boy to give him the self-confidence to communicate and work with other people,” Tina said.
As with most all of Connecticut Food Bank member programs, efforts are made to go beyond the immediate food needs of their customers. Pantry staff and volunteers check in with customers to ask how they’re doing, and if someone like Tina’s son can pitch in and help, they welcome them to have a role in serving others.Jerry expressed his appreciation for the food delivered weekly by the Connecticut Food Bank. It’s a 92-mile round trip to the pantry in New Milford. “If it wasn’t for the Connecticut Food Bank, we would either have to close or we would have to severely restrict the number of people we serve.”
A Visit from the CEO: Our Daily Bread Food Pantry in New Milford
C O N N E C T I C U T F O O D N E W S2
It’s not just the problem of “heat or eat” that affects food insecure families this winter. Record-breaking cold has disrupted delivery of food assistance by Connecticut Food Bank member programs and by Connecticut Food Bank mobile programs.
“Winter is a challenging time because people spend more on utilities, but it’s also tough for customers to venture out and for programs to open when we have snow storms or extreme cold,” said Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau. “Programs we talked with tell us that, in many cases, they’ve served fewer people than average in the cold snap, which means more people are hungry.”
Connecticut Food Bank Mobile Pantries were hard-hit in the severe cold. The fresh produce so valued by pantry customers was damaged in distributions attempted on the coldest days. Customer attendance also dropped because it was difficult and dangerous to be outside for long. “We have worked hard to find indoor customer waiting areas with our site hosts,” said Connecticut Food Bank Program Manager Frederick Goodman. “While we made great progress on that over the last year, we still found this extreme cold was dangerous for our volunteers and staff at the outdoor sites.”
Volunteer attendance dropped as well in the coldest and snowiest days we experienced in late December and early January. This was true for member programs as well, where the challenging weather kept volunteers away. Maxine Seabrooks of the Brooklawn Seventh Day Adventist Church pantry program in Bridgeport noted that many of her volunteers and clients walk to the pantry on Tuesdays when they are open. On January 2,
Seabrooks said that she had fewer volunteers to help and fewer customers make the trip for food. She noted that they served some people on site and was pleased that they were able to complete delivery of food for those who are home-bound.
Judy Baron at Community Dining Room in Branford noted that they were down by more than 270 meals in late December and early January, over the same period as last year. A late December conversation with Meagan Howard at Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen in New Haven yielded similar experiences. She noted that, in extreme cold, people are reluctant to wait in exposed conditions for food.
Barbara Dublin at Greater Waterbury Interfaith Ministries said that monthly trends overall indicate increased needs over the past year, as we have seen with many other programs. Because their December opening day was prior to the most severe cold, they did not experience the same dip in visits. But Dublin noted that, during the remainder of the month and into early January, they saw increased walk-in visits for emergency assistance, perhaps indicating that people had not been able to secure food from other usual sources.
“We know the weather will break at some point and we can roll our Mobile Pantry trucks again,” Beaudreau said. “But I’m especially worried about the pent-up need that we and our member programs will face as people struggle to pay utility bills this winter. They have had fewer options for food assistance at this critical time. We are bracing for increased food demand from programs and are working hard to make sure that we have the resources to fill those needs.”
Cold Snap Disrupts Service Delivery; Needs Increased
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 4
Local Food Helping Local FamiliesIn December, Laurel Glen Farm in Shelton donated 3,000 pounds of giant, “long neck” butternut squash. The unusual squash is a favorite with restaurants because it provides a high yield. It’s not so easy for a food pantry to store such an item and nearly impossible for a home cook to easily make use of these long neck squash. But we knew that people would welcome this fresh, locally grown produce if they could.
We went to work right away, picking up the donation and bringing it back to cold storage in our Wallingford distribution center, where we have more than 10,000 feet of refrigerated and frozen food storage.
We reached out to our network of member programs with commercial style kitchens to see if they were able to make use of this bounty. Two programs, one in New Haven and one in Stamford, were able to take 850 pounds of the squash between them and prepare it for service in their soup kitchens. To give you a sense of their size, two of the squash provided a delicious side dish for nearly 200 diners at Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen in New Haven, which took 500 pounds of the donation.
Seeking to share this food as widely as possible, we then reached out to a local food processor, Onofrio’s Ultimate Foods in East Haven, which agreed to prepare the squash for use by home cooks. They cleaned, peeled, chopped and bagged
the remaining squash at a below-cost rate. Returned to the Connecticut Food Bank and frozen, the squash is now ready for distribution to a much wider range of food assistance programs and ultimately to individuals and families for whom this type of food might be a beyond-reach luxury.
We could not have acted on this opportunity without your donations. Because of the capacity this building provides, we could accept a donation we might otherwise have had to pass up. The financial donations you make help us to cover the costs of sourcing, transporting, storing and distributing large quantities of food.
Thank you for helping to put fresh, nutritious, satisfying foods on the tables of people who struggle every day to meet basic needs. When you donate to the Connecticut Food Bank, you not only provide for those basic needs, you meet another need as well; reminding neighbors that they are part of a community that cares.
Thank you for helping to put fresh, nutritious, satisfying foods on the tables of people who struggle every day to meet basic needs.
Farms are important partners in the fight against hunger. The Connecticut Food Bank is proud to work with Connecticut farmers to grow solutions to hunger in our state. In addition to helping provide more access to fresh produce, we support the local farm economy by working to move all produce to tables and pantries. And less produce wasted means less of it in landfills. We helped to facilitate the donation of more than 200,000 pounds of local produce last year from nearly 20 area farms. Crops donated included tomatoes, corn, squash, apples and assorted greens.
In a recent survey of our member programs, 96% of respondents indicated they currently distribute produce. “[Our clients] will never complain about having too much produce – sometimes not enough; whatever we are provided with we are able to distribute” was
the comment submitted by one program respondent. Collectively, farmers and the Connecticut Food Bank help our neighbors who are experiencing hunger and promote consumption of healthy, locally grown food.
Farm to Pantry Program Grows Solutions
Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau has been on the road, visiting many members of our network of more than 650 food assistance programs.
After a 41-year career with The Minute Maid Company, a Division of the Coca-Cola Company, retiring as SVP-Operations for North America, New Milford resident Jerry Jones wanted to dedicate his retirement volunteer time to feeding the hungry. Our Daily Bread food pantry in New Milford is the fortunate result of that goal. Jerry was no stranger to hunger relief; while at Coca-Cola, he served on the Board of Directors of Feeding America predecessor America’s Second Harvest.
Jerry was inspired to open the pantry when manufacturer Kimberly-Clark moved its diaper manufacturing operations out of the area to North Carolina in July 2004, laying off 300 workers. The town was quickly overwhelmed trying to meet the basic needs of unemployed workers.
With the support and sponsorship of New Milford United Methodist Church, Jerry organized a team of volunteers and started Our Daily Bread. An early grant from Union Savings Bank was used to build what the pantry calls their “food barn.” Our Daily Bread is a client
choice shopping pantry; customers choose the foods they like and need, rather than receive a pre-packed combination of food items that they may not like or be unable to eat. Preserving the dignity of their customers is a founding principle.
I visited Jerry Jones and his Communications Director Jan Parsons in late September and spoke with them, as well as with several pantry customers. Jerry spoke of their humble beginnings and the commitment of his church to feed the hungry.
With some local financial support and with volunteers from New Milford United Methodist Church, Our Daily Bread feeds 400 to 500 people each month. The pantry is open from 3pm to 6pm each Thursday. The afternoon hours make the pantry more accessible to low-wage earners from New Milford and nearby Danbury. “The word has gotten out that we have eggs and meat,” Jan shared. “That’s why half of our customers travel a good distance to get here.”
Jan and Jerry sat with me in the church lobby as I interviewed six of their food pantry customers. Each had a heart-wrenching story of life challenges that led them to Our Daily Bread.
Tina is a single parent, raising two special needs teenage children. Tina struggles to make ends meet on her minimum wage sales job. She struggles to spend under $50 a week on essential food items, but found herself running out of food at the end of the month, after paying other bills. “We got to the point where we had zero food in the house and we ate nothing for three days. I was desperate. I called my sister for a few cans of soup that I would split with my kids.”
Tina finally went to the director of social services in New Milford, who told her about Our Daily Bread. “It’s been really tough,” Tina told me at that September meeting. “I have two weeks to find a new place to live because my landlord evicted me after I complained about unsafe conditions.”
Tina detailed her difficult financial situation. “I was married, making great money. Had a house and two cars. I didn’t think that a year after my divorce that I would be unemployed and without housing. Everything I thought would be there isn’t any more. It really humbled me. I just need a job that’s going to pay more than minimum wage. If I can get that, things will be better off.”
Tina broke down in tears as she spoke of her 19-year-old son with Autism who used to volunteer every Thursday at the food pantry alongside Hank, a pantry volunteer who died a few years ago. The pantry has been rededicated in his memory. “I really miss Hank. He worked with my boy to give him the self-confidence to communicate and work with other people,” Tina said.
As with most all of Connecticut Food Bank member programs, efforts are made to go beyond the immediate food needs of their customers. Pantry staff and volunteers check in with customers to ask how they’re doing, and if someone like Tina’s son can pitch in and help, they welcome them to have a role in serving others.Jerry expressed his appreciation for the food delivered weekly by the Connecticut Food Bank. It’s a 92-mile round trip to the pantry in New Milford. “If it wasn’t for the Connecticut Food Bank, we would either have to close or we would have to severely restrict the number of people we serve.”
A Visit from the CEO: Our Daily Bread Food Pantry in New Milford
C O N N E C T I C U T F O O D N E W S2
It’s not just the problem of “heat or eat” that affects food insecure families this winter. Record-breaking cold has disrupted delivery of food assistance by Connecticut Food Bank member programs and by Connecticut Food Bank mobile programs.
“Winter is a challenging time because people spend more on utilities, but it’s also tough for customers to venture out and for programs to open when we have snow storms or extreme cold,” said Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau. “Programs we talked with tell us that, in many cases, they’ve served fewer people than average in the cold snap, which means more people are hungry.”
Connecticut Food Bank Mobile Pantries were hard-hit in the severe cold. The fresh produce so valued by pantry customers was damaged in distributions attempted on the coldest days. Customer attendance also dropped because it was difficult and dangerous to be outside for long. “We have worked hard to find indoor customer waiting areas with our site hosts,” said Connecticut Food Bank Program Manager Frederick Goodman. “While we made great progress on that over the last year, we still found this extreme cold was dangerous for our volunteers and staff at the outdoor sites.”
Volunteer attendance dropped as well in the coldest and snowiest days we experienced in late December and early January. This was true for member programs as well, where the challenging weather kept volunteers away. Maxine Seabrooks of the Brooklawn Seventh Day Adventist Church pantry program in Bridgeport noted that many of her volunteers and clients walk to the pantry on Tuesdays when they are open. On January 2,
Seabrooks said that she had fewer volunteers to help and fewer customers make the trip for food. She noted that they served some people on site and was pleased that they were able to complete delivery of food for those who are home-bound.
Judy Baron at Community Dining Room in Branford noted that they were down by more than 270 meals in late December and early January, over the same period as last year. A late December conversation with Meagan Howard at Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen in New Haven yielded similar experiences. She noted that, in extreme cold, people are reluctant to wait in exposed conditions for food.
Barbara Dublin at Greater Waterbury Interfaith Ministries said that monthly trends overall indicate increased needs over the past year, as we have seen with many other programs. Because their December opening day was prior to the most severe cold, they did not experience the same dip in visits. But Dublin noted that, during the remainder of the month and into early January, they saw increased walk-in visits for emergency assistance, perhaps indicating that people had not been able to secure food from other usual sources.
“We know the weather will break at some point and we can roll our Mobile Pantry trucks again,” Beaudreau said. “But I’m especially worried about the pent-up need that we and our member programs will face as people struggle to pay utility bills this winter. They have had fewer options for food assistance at this critical time. We are bracing for increased food demand from programs and are working hard to make sure that we have the resources to fill those needs.”
Cold Snap Disrupts Service Delivery; Needs Increased
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 4
Local Food Helping Local FamiliesIn December, Laurel Glen Farm in Shelton donated 3,000 pounds of giant, “long neck” butternut squash. The unusual squash is a favorite with restaurants because it provides a high yield. It’s not so easy for a food pantry to store such an item and nearly impossible for a home cook to easily make use of these long neck squash. But we knew that people would welcome this fresh, locally grown produce if they could.
We went to work right away, picking up the donation and bringing it back to cold storage in our Wallingford distribution center, where we have more than 10,000 feet of refrigerated and frozen food storage.
We reached out to our network of member programs with commercial style kitchens to see if they were able to make use of this bounty. Two programs, one in New Haven and one in Stamford, were able to take 850 pounds of the squash between them and prepare it for service in their soup kitchens. To give you a sense of their size, two of the squash provided a delicious side dish for nearly 200 diners at Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen in New Haven, which took 500 pounds of the donation.
Seeking to share this food as widely as possible, we then reached out to a local food processor, Onofrio’s Ultimate Foods in East Haven, which agreed to prepare the squash for use by home cooks. They cleaned, peeled, chopped and bagged
the remaining squash at a below-cost rate. Returned to the Connecticut Food Bank and frozen, the squash is now ready for distribution to a much wider range of food assistance programs and ultimately to individuals and families for whom this type of food might be a beyond-reach luxury.
We could not have acted on this opportunity without your donations. Because of the capacity this building provides, we could accept a donation we might otherwise have had to pass up. The financial donations you make help us to cover the costs of sourcing, transporting, storing and distributing large quantities of food.
Thank you for helping to put fresh, nutritious, satisfying foods on the tables of people who struggle every day to meet basic needs. When you donate to the Connecticut Food Bank, you not only provide for those basic needs, you meet another need as well; reminding neighbors that they are part of a community that cares.
Thank you for helping to put fresh, nutritious, satisfying foods on the tables of people who struggle every day to meet basic needs.
Farms are important partners in the fight against hunger. The Connecticut Food Bank is proud to work with Connecticut farmers to grow solutions to hunger in our state. In addition to helping provide more access to fresh produce, we support the local farm economy by working to move all produce to tables and pantries. And less produce wasted means less of it in landfills. We helped to facilitate the donation of more than 200,000 pounds of local produce last year from nearly 20 area farms. Crops donated included tomatoes, corn, squash, apples and assorted greens.
In a recent survey of our member programs, 96% of respondents indicated they currently distribute produce. “[Our clients] will never complain about having too much produce – sometimes not enough; whatever we are provided with we are able to distribute” was
the comment submitted by one program respondent. Collectively, farmers and the Connecticut Food Bank help our neighbors who are experiencing hunger and promote consumption of healthy, locally grown food.
Farm to Pantry Program Grows Solutions
Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau has been on the road, visiting many members of our network of more than 650 food assistance programs.
After a 41-year career with The Minute Maid Company, a Division of the Coca-Cola Company, retiring as SVP-Operations for North America, New Milford resident Jerry Jones wanted to dedicate his retirement volunteer time to feeding the hungry. Our Daily Bread food pantry in New Milford is the fortunate result of that goal. Jerry was no stranger to hunger relief; while at Coca-Cola, he served on the Board of Directors of Feeding America predecessor America’s Second Harvest.
Jerry was inspired to open the pantry when manufacturer Kimberly-Clark moved its diaper manufacturing operations out of the area to North Carolina in July 2004, laying off 300 workers. The town was quickly overwhelmed trying to meet the basic needs of unemployed workers.
With the support and sponsorship of New Milford United Methodist Church, Jerry organized a team of volunteers and started Our Daily Bread. An early grant from Union Savings Bank was used to build what the pantry calls their “food barn.” Our Daily Bread is a client
choice shopping pantry; customers choose the foods they like and need, rather than receive a pre-packed combination of food items that they may not like or be unable to eat. Preserving the dignity of their customers is a founding principle.
I visited Jerry Jones and his Communications Director Jan Parsons in late September and spoke with them, as well as with several pantry customers. Jerry spoke of their humble beginnings and the commitment of his church to feed the hungry.
With some local financial support and with volunteers from New Milford United Methodist Church, Our Daily Bread feeds 400 to 500 people each month. The pantry is open from 3pm to 6pm each Thursday. The afternoon hours make the pantry more accessible to low-wage earners from New Milford and nearby Danbury. “The word has gotten out that we have eggs and meat,” Jan shared. “That’s why half of our customers travel a good distance to get here.”
Jan and Jerry sat with me in the church lobby as I interviewed six of their food pantry customers. Each had a heart-wrenching story of life challenges that led them to Our Daily Bread.
Tina is a single parent, raising two special needs teenage children. Tina struggles to make ends meet on her minimum wage sales job. She struggles to spend under $50 a week on essential food items, but found herself running out of food at the end of the month, after paying other bills. “We got to the point where we had zero food in the house and we ate nothing for three days. I was desperate. I called my sister for a few cans of soup that I would split with my kids.”
Tina finally went to the director of social services in New Milford, who told her about Our Daily Bread. “It’s been really tough,” Tina told me at that September meeting. “I have two weeks to find a new place to live because my landlord evicted me after I complained about unsafe conditions.”
Tina detailed her difficult financial situation. “I was married, making great money. Had a house and two cars. I didn’t think that a year after my divorce that I would be unemployed and without housing. Everything I thought would be there isn’t any more. It really humbled me. I just need a job that’s going to pay more than minimum wage. If I can get that, things will be better off.”
Tina broke down in tears as she spoke of her 19-year-old son with autism who used to volunteer every Thursday at the food pantry alongside Hank, a pantry volunteer who died a few years ago. The pantry has been rededicated in his memory. “I really miss Hank. He worked with my boy to give him the self-confidence to communicate and work with other people,” Tina said.
As with most all Connecticut Food Bank member programs, efforts are made to go beyond the immediate food needs of their customers. Pantry staff and volunteers check in with customers to ask how they’re doing, and if someone like Tina’s son can pitch in and help, they welcome them to have a role in serving others.Jerry expressed his appreciation for the food delivered weekly by the Connecticut Food Bank. It’s a 92-mile round trip to the pantry in New Milford. “If it wasn’t for the Connecticut Food Bank, we would either have to close or we would have to severely restrict the number of people we serve.”
A Visit from the CEO: Our Daily Bread Food Pantry in New Milford
GROW Program Expands to Serve Older ChildrenAfter identifying the need to support older children not met by other direct services, the Connecticut Food Bank expanded the GROW program to include a new high school site in Stratford, beginning in October.
Using a model similar to the GROW program that serves families with young children, our specially outfitted Grocery On Wheels visits twice monthly during the last period of school. The program, funded by a multi-year grant from our Family Foundation by Stop & Shop, will offer a total of eight workshops on subjects including nutrition, healthy cooking, financial literacy and personal health to approximately 40 students.
More than half of the 900 students at Stratford High School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Students participating in the GROW program are selected based on that eligibility and with the help of school guidance counselors. Some of the students in the program are caring for younger siblings, are in foster care or are homeless. After a recent GROW visit, one student said she was looking forward to making a stir-fry and soup with the fresh produce she received.
We hope this pilot will provide new insight into ways we can serve a population that ages out of other assistance programs.
Many people believe that planned gifts are made
only by the wealthy. The fact is bequests are made by people from every income level and walk of life who want to make a lasting, positive impact on communities or causes important to them. Gifts by will are a wonderful way to support the Connecticut Food Bank and a powerful demonstration to others of your commitment to the hunger relief mission of our work. If you want to learn more about planned giving to support our work, visit ctfoodbank.org/ways-to-give or contact Cheryl Thompson at (203) 741-9207.
Make a Lasting Impact on Hunger With a Planned Gift to the Connecticut Food Bank
HEADQUARTERS ANDDISTRIBUTION CENTER2 Research ParkwayWallingford, CT 06492t/ 203.469.5000f/ 203.469.4871
FAIRFIELDDISTRIBUTION CENTER74 Linwood AvenueFairfield, CT 06824t/ 203.256.1935f/ 203.256.1648
www.ctfoodbank.orgwww.facebook.com/ctfoodbankwww.twitter.com/ctfoodbankwww.instagram.com/ctfoodbank
The Connecticut Food Bank welcomes questions, comments and ideas. All correspondence should be addressed to the Development Department. If your name is incorrect or you are receiving duplicate mailings, please call Sue Moore at (203) 741-9078 or email [email protected].
Connecticut Food Bank is a partner of Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs that provides food and services to more than 46 million people each year.
Walk Against Hunger is April 29 in New Haven
Join us at this year’s Walk Against Hunger, Sunday, April 29, at Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven. Last year more than 500 people turned out to raise awareness of hunger and helped us raise enough funds to provide more than 100,000 meals for people in need.
Visit www.ctfoodbank.org/walk for more information or contact Mia Freedenfeld, Special Events Manager, at (203) 741-9758 or email her at [email protected].
A Lifetime of GivingHarry and Manette Adams have been generous Connecticut Food Bank donors for 23 years. Their gifts were among those that helped to build the Connecticut Food Bank facility in Wallingford, dramatically increasing our capacity to accept, store and distribute food. Sadly, Manette passed away late last year.
This year, Harry surprised us with a gift that was double their previous giving level. Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau visited him at his home at the Whitney Center in Hamden for lunch in early December to extend his personal thanks for Harry’s and his late wife’s generosity. Said Bernie, “we shared stories over lunch followed by a tour of the wonderful Whitney Center, which is home to more than 400 seniors.”
They talked about Harry’s WWII Air Corps service, his degrees received from Yale and his career as a professor and director at Yale Divinity School. At 93 years of age, Harry walks five miles three days a week, has no walker and has no complaints. He’s an avid opera enthusiast and his favorite is La Boheme. “Harry’s famous seven words summarizing the New Testament are: You can love God and your neighbor,” Beaudreau said. Harry Adams’s dedication to feeding his hungry neighbors have put words to action. "There's nothing more important than the food bank," he explained.
Golden Scoop Corporate Championship ReturnsOnce again, teams from businesses and corporations in Connecticut will compete for bragging rights to the most muscle in the fight against hunger. The challenge: scoop the most dried pasta in one hour, filling bags one pound at a time.
Competitors last year included Stop & Shop, Wells Fargo, Webster Bank, Burns & McDonnell, Bristol-Myers Squibb and a team fielded by our Board of Directors. Does your business have what it takes to unseat last year’s champs?
Contact Mia Freedenfeld, Special Events Manager, at (203) 741-9758 or email her at [email protected] to learn more.
UPCOMING EVENTS
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 6
When this newsletter went to print, Connecticut was experiencing daytime high temperatures in the mid-teens, coupled with biting winds. That means many families will face what is too frequent a choice; put food on the table or heat their homes.
Connecticut, one of the wealthiest states in the nation, is also one of the costliest in which to live. A United Way study found that 27% of Connecticut households are asset limited, income constrained, employed (ALICE). These families earn more than what is considered the poverty level, but still struggle to meet basic needs.
The United Way ALICE report says a survival budget for a Connecticut family of four (two adults, one infant and one preschooler) would range from just over $66,000 per year to nearly $74,000 per year, depending on where you live in Connecticut. More than half the jobs in Connecticut paid less than the $20 per hour that would just edge the bottom end of the survival budget range, with most of those jobs paying below $15 per hour.
Too many of these families struggle without benefit of any state or federal assistance. According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study, 42% of Connecticut residents who struggle with hunger earn above federal food assistance eligibility levels.
The Connecticut Food Bank works with more than 650 member programs to help ease the difficult choices many families in our state are forced to make. Donations to the food bank help us distribute nutritious food to families that would otherwise not have enough. Last year, we distributed enough food for more than 21 million meals. That’s nutritious meals for children; balanced meals for seniors; hot and healthful meals for people visiting shelters and soup kitchens; and meals made possible for veterans who have already given so much in service and deserve more for their sacrifice.
Your gifts of money, time and food make those meals possible. And that means fewer families face terrible choices like food or heat.
Heat or Eat: The Winter Tradition Nobody Loves
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 V O L U M E 2 7 , N U M B E R 1
CONNECTICUT FOOD NEWS
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8C O N N E C T I C U T F O O D N E W S 1
Your gifts of money, time and food make
those meals possible. And that means fewer
families face terrible choices like
food or heat.
C O N N E C T I C U T F O O D N E W S5
GROW Program Expands to Serve Older ChildrenAfter identifying the need to support older children not met by other direct services, the Connecticut Food Bank expanded the GROW program to include a new high school site in Stratford, beginning in October.
Using a model similar to the GROW program that serves families with young children, our specially outfitted Grocery On Wheels visits twice monthly during the last period of school. The program, funded by a multi-year grant from our Family Foundation by Stop & Shop, will offer a total of eight workshops on subjects including nutrition, healthy cooking, financial literacy and personal health to approximately 40 students.
More than half of the 900 students at Stratford High School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Students participating in the GROW program are selected based on that eligibility and with the help of school guidance counselors. Some of the students in the program are caring for younger siblings, are in foster care or are homeless. After a recent GROW visit, one student said she was looking forward to making a stir-fry and soup with the fresh produce she received.
We hope this pilot will provide new insight into ways we can serve a population that ages out of other assistance programs.
Many people believe that planned gifts are made
only by the wealthy. The fact is bequests are made by people from every income level and walk of life who want to make a lasting, positive impact on communities or causes important to them. Gifts by will are a wonderful way to support the Connecticut Food Bank and a powerful demonstration to others of your commitment to the hunger relief mission of our work. If you want to learn more about planned giving to support our work, visit ctfoodbank.org/ways-to-give or contact Cheryl Thompson at (203) 741-9207.
Make a Lasting Impact on Hunger With a Planned Gift to the Connecticut Food Bank
HEADQUARTERS ANDDISTRIBUTION CENTER2 Research ParkwayWallingford, CT 06492t/ 203.469.5000f/ 203.469.4871
FAIRFIELDDISTRIBUTION CENTER74 Linwood AvenueFairfield, CT 06824t/ 203.256.1935f/ 203.256.1648
www.ctfoodbank.orgwww.facebook.com/ctfoodbankwww.twitter.com/ctfoodbankwww.instagram.com/ctfoodbank
The Connecticut Food Bank welcomes questions, comments and ideas. All correspondence should be addressed to the Development Department. If your name is incorrect or you are receiving duplicate mailings, please call Sue Moore at (203) 741-9078 or email [email protected].
Connecticut Food Bank is a partner of Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs that provides food and services to more than 46 million people each year.
Walk Against Hunger is April 29 in New Haven
Join us at this year’s Walk Against Hunger, Sunday, April 29, at Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven. Last year more than 500 people turned out to raise awareness of hunger and helped us raise enough funds to provide more than 100,000 meals for people in need.
Visit www.ctfoodbank.org/walk for more information or contact Mia Freedenfeld, Special Events Manager, at (203) 741-9758 or email her at [email protected].
A Lifetime of GivingHarry and Manette Adams have been generous Connecticut Food Bank donors for 23 years. Their gifts were among those that helped to build the Connecticut Food Bank facility in Wallingford, dramatically increasing our capacity to accept, store and distribute food. Sadly, Manette passed away late last year.
This year, Harry surprised us with a gift that was double their previous giving level. Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau visited him at his home at the Whitney Center in Hamden for lunch in early December to extend his personal thanks for Harry’s and his late wife’s, generosity. Said Bernie, “we shared stories over lunch followed by a tour of the wonderful Whitney Center, which is home to more than 400 seniors.”
They talked about Harry’s WWII Air Corps service in 1942 and his degrees received from Yale and his career as a professor and director at Yale Divinity School. At 93 years of age, Harry walks five miles three days a week, has no walker and has no complaints. He’s an avid opera enthusiast and his favorite is La Boheme. “Harry’s famous seven words summarizing the New Testament are: You can love God and your neighbor,” Beaudreau said. Harry Adams’s dedication to feeding his hungry neighbors have put words to action. "There's nothing more important than the food bank," he explained.
Golden Scoop Corporate Championship ReturnsOnce again, teams from businesses and corporations in Connecticut will compete for bragging rights to the most muscle in the fight against hunger. The challenge: scoop the most dried pasta in one hour, filling bags one pound at a time.
Competitors last year included Stop & Shop, Wells Fargo, Webster Bank, Burns & McDonnell, Bristol-Myers Squibb and a team fielded by our Board of Directors. Does your business have what it takes to unseat last year’s champs?
Contact Mia Freedenfeld, Special Events Manager, at (203) 741-9758 or email her at [email protected] to learn more.
UPCOMING EVENTS
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 6
When this newsletter went to print, Connecticut was experiencing daytime high temperatures in the mid-teens, coupled with biting winds. That means many families will face what is too frequent a choice; put food on the table or heat their homes.
Connecticut, one of the wealthiest states in the nation, is also one of the costliest in which to live. A United Way study found that 27% of Connecticut households are asset limited, income constrained, employed (ALICE). These families earn more than what is considered the poverty level, but still struggle to meet basic needs.
The United Way ALICE report says a survival budget for a Connecticut family of four (two adults, one infant and one preschooler) would range from just over $66,000 per year to nearly $74,000 per year, depending on where you live in Connecticut. More than half the jobs in Connecticut paid less than the $20 per hour that would just edge the bottom end of the survival budget range, with most of those jobs paying below $15 per hour.
Too many of these families struggle without benefit of any state or federal assistance. According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study, 42% of Connecticut residents who struggle with hunger earn above federal food assistance eligibility levels.
The Connecticut Food Bank works with more than 650 member programs to help ease the difficult choices many families in our state are forced to make. Donations to the food bank help us distribute nutritious food to families that would otherwise not have enough. Last year, we distributed enough food for more than 21 million meals. That’s nutritious meals for children; balanced meals for seniors; hot and healthful meals for people visiting shelters and soup kitchens; and meals made possible for veterans who have already given so much in service and deserve more for their sacrifice.
Your gifts of money, time and food make those meals possible. And that means fewer families face terrible choices like food or heat.
Heat or Eat: The Winter Tradition Nobody Loves
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 V O L U M E 2 7 , N U M B E R 1
CONNECTICUT FOOD NEWS
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8C O N N E C T I C U T F O O D N E W S 1
Your gifts of money, time and food make
those meals possible. And that means fewer
families face terrible choices like
food or heat.
C O N N E C T I C U T F O O D N E W S2
Related Documents
