Hunger Response Network News from Northwest Harvest

Hunger Response Network News July 2013 IN THIS ISSUE: - Best Practices  - Food Safety - Advocacy - Procurement - Partners in Action      Inserts $MART BUY$  (PDF)   Recipes  (PDF)    CALENDAR:    Aug 13: AHNC Membership Meeting Sept 2: Northwest Harvest closed for Labor Day Sept 18-20: WFC Conference  Spread the word about Summer Meals! Make sure summer meals flyers are at your registration table, in every bag, and in a place where customers can see and take them. If you need more, let us know!   Northwest Harvest  P.O. Box 12272  Seattle, WA 98102 877.353.7469 A Letter From Shelley Dear Partners,    While summer is an exciting time for many people, we know it can be a struggle for many food bank and meal program clients and many of you are stepping it up during the summer months to meet your clients' needs. We are continually impressed by the creative methods you use to address your clients' challenges. This quarter's newsletter focuses on a few creative ways that partners have found to address specific needs in their community. MORE...  Best Practices Filling the gaps with targeted food drives  For this month's Best Practices focus, we sat down with Suzy McNeilly of the Council on Aging and Human Services Food Bank to learn about their targeted cereal food drive. What was the cereal food drive? The Cereal Food Drive was held in cooperation with the local Rosauers 13-Hours Cereal Sale and a local motorcycle club. The club had been asking to sponsor a food drive (in memory of a long time Colfax Food Bank volunteer)--so the timing was perfect, and we had volunteers ready to organize, be present and transport the donations. MORE...  Food Safety The Rule: 6" off the floor and 6" away from the wall Limited space can make food storage stressful. With so many distinctive types of food bank and pantry facilities, everyone seems to have a different set of physical constraints. This article will cover the rules of food storage and solutions. Let's review the rules first. Keep food in rooms designated for storage-not in restrooms or hallways. Do not store frozen, refrigerated or dry food directly on the floor or under overhead pipes. All frozen, refrigerated and dry food should be kept at least six inches off the floor and at least six inches away from walls.  MORE...  Advocacy Works! Let's keep the momentum going!  Thanks to your efforts to educate lawmakers, we've pulled off some major successes: Your phone calls, emails, and signing on to our petition opposing cuts to SNAP in the Farm Bill resulted in the House voting down a terrible bill that would have cut SNAP by $20.5 billion!    Your help collecting personalized messages from clients and your visits on Hunger Action Day resulted in the passing of a state budget that restores critically needed funding to the State Food Assistance, Farm to School and Small Farms Direct Marketing programs and avoids harmful cuts to critical support services! But the work doesn't end here. In fact, we need your help more than ever. Shortly after voting down the Farm Bill, the House narrowly passed a Farm Bill that contains agriculture programs only. SNAP and other nutrition programs, including TEFAP and CSFP, will be put in separate legislation, leaving these programs more vulnerable for deep cuts. We need your help with contacting your members of Congress to let them know how important these programs are to the people you serve. MORE...   Legal Assistance     Is your program in compliance? You sit on a food bank board, or are an executive director or volunteer that helps run the food bank. You love your organization and are passionate about its mission to feed the hungry. You spend hours assuring the organization's programs are well-run and raising adequate funds and donations to support them. Yet, you have this nagging feeling that you may be overlooking some legal requirement that will come back to haunt the organization in the future. The Nonprofit Legal Self-Assessment Checklist is the tool for you.   MORE...  Welcome Eu-wanda Eagans!  Dear Partners,  I am very excited to be a part of the Northwest Harvest family and look forward to working with each of you to reduce our hunger needs in this state.  The opportunity to be a part of the Northwest Harvest team  is a dream come true for me.  To be able to use my experience in engineering, operations and manufacturing to directly impact our communities in meeting a basic need, is something I have wanted to do for a long time.  In my role as Chief Operating Officer, I am responsible for the strategic oversight of Northwest Harvest Operations which includes Warehouse Operations, Transportation and Logistics, Food Procurement, and Partner Programs. MORE...  Procurement Hello Friends,   It's starting to really warm up over here. Today as I write this it is going to be 92 degrees here in Western Washington, and even hotter on the eastern side of the mountains. It makes one wonder how our friends in need cope on a daily basis when it gets this hot. We continue to get terrific feedback on our ongoing program of purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables-people seem to love them!  MORE...   Partners in Action  Nutrition Education: Chicken Soup Brigade In this edition of Partners in Action we highlight Pots and Plans, a program created by Chicken Soup Brigade (CSB) in Seattle. Pots and Plans is a six-week series of cooking and nutrition classes designed to help seniors learn to cook nutritious, simple recipes. The curriculum was created by registered dietitians and nutritionists at CSB, a program of Lifelong AIDS Alliance. Each class focuses on a different nutrition-related topic and includes an activity or educational component.   MORE...