Our Visit to Second Harvest

Our Visit to Second Harvest

By Stephanie Kardos

 

At the beginning of February we got to visit Second Harvest distribution center and food bank in Spokane.  We went to their monthly meeting with all the local food banks and had a tour of the distribution center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we arrived we had a meeting with Sherman Reese and learned about “Feeding Washington”. Feeding Washington was created by a collaboration from Food Lifeline and Second Harvest to increase the amount of free food available to more than 500 food banks, meal centers and other hunger-relief programs that are feeding 880,000 hungry people each year throughout the state.  

Sherman used to be a farmer and now he works with farmers to get fresh food delivered to the Second Harvest Distribution center and out to food banks and meal programs.

 

 

 

 

 After talking with Sherman, we attended the 2^nd Harvest February meeting with all the local food banks. At the meeting there were guest speakers from the St Joseph Family Center and Serve Spokane. Then we took a tour of the Second Harvest distribution center.

 

 

 

 

 

Owen Esperas, the Second Harvest Director of Warehouse Operation Manager, eagerly showed us around the warehouse and gave us background on Second Harvest.  Second Harvest has been leading the hunger relief network in the region since 1971. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They distribute 2 million pounds of free food each month to help people in need in 26 counties throughout Eastern Washington and North Idaho.  The facilities are modern, clean and very organized. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Owen was proud to show us the flags that represent the Food Safety awards they won for the last 3 years.













Owen also showed us the volunteer area where there is a lounge and café area as well as a conveyer belt and sorting room, so the volunteers can sort out and repackage food.











He told us a cute story about some of their senior volunteers and how competitive they can get while sorting produce. Second Harvest has more than 2,500 volunteers assist with ongoing food sorting, bulk food repackaging, general office needs, food drives and other special events held throughout the year.  For more information on Second Harvest in Spokane please visit there website:
www.2-harvest.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AHNC Update on Anti-Hunger Program Initiatives

2014 Legislative Session - Week 4 Anti-Hunger and Nutrition Coalition   Legislative Session Update - February 25, 2014   Senate Budget Proposal The Senate Majority Caucus Supplemental Budget proposal was released yesterday afternoon at a news conference. Here's how the AHNC Priorities fared in this budget:     Program AHNC Request Amount Senate Budget Proposed Amount Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP) $1 million $800,000 added dollars Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) $500,000 $0* State Food Assistance (SFA) $1.367 million $0 Breakfast After the Bell $101,000 (fiscal note for the bill) $0 * There is a $200,000 allocation to direct farm marketing that may have been meant to FMNP; folks are checking on this now.  Issue Updates  Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP): It was great to see funding for EFAP included in the proposed Senate Budget.  Food Lifeline issued an alert on the $1 m EFAP funding request.   Action: Click here to respond to the alert and then send it to your networks.  It's a simple way to thank Senators for including funding in their budget and also send messages to Representatives about the need for added EFAP funding in their budget.       Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP):  The WA Sustainable Food and Farming Network is sending out alerts asking members to call the 18 Senators that sit on Ways and Means and have not yet signed onto the FMNP letter. Same for the 19 Representatives on Appropriations that haven't yet signed. Legislator sign-on letters have been submitted to leadership in both houses. Action: Check the House and Senate letters and if your legislator hasn't signed, please ask them to sign on.  And if they have signed, please thank them!  Breakfast After the Bell: The Breakfast After the Bell bill (HB 2536) was passed by the House with a vote of 67 to 31 last Tuesday. The bill now goes to the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee, which had approved a version of the bill several weeks ago. So far, no hearing or vote on the bill has been scheduled, but there is still time! We will continue to monitor and send out updates. State Food Assistance (SFA): The Children's Alliance developed a revised budget request for State Food Assistance last week, based upon budget realities and the anticipated impact of the Farm Bill "heat and eat" cut on 1/3 of WA households receiving Basic Food or SFA. The revised budget request is $1.367 m to begin 100% SFA benefits January 1, 2015. The change reduces the cost in the Supplemental but continues to position SFA to be fully funded in the 2015-17 biennium.   Action: Please contact your members in either House, particularly those who sit theAppropriations and Ways and Means Committees. We still have our online message open so click here to send a message as well.   We are also asking folks to submit Letters to the Editor in targeted media outlets around the state. Click here for information on the LTE campaign. We will be in touch soon with information on the House budgets which is rumored to be released and heard tomorrow (Wednesday).
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Rescue Mission in Tacoma

By Stephanie Kardos

After the Winter Food Summit we had a chance to tour the Rescue Mission of Tacoma’s Good Neighbor Café.  At the Café free and healthy meals are served to low income and homeless individuals.  When we visited they were getting ready to serve dinner. 











In the kitchen volunteers were cutting up fresh veggies, setting out ice tea and getting the hot food ready.   The food is mostly donated and they strive for highly nutritious meals.  Also the kitchen volunteers have an opportunity to get some great job training skills.

We learned that the program was going on its 102^nd year. In 1912, Led by Evangelist Gypsy Smith, a group of business leaders rented a hall in Tacoma.  Originally called The Tacoma Commons, homeless and struggling men could find food and shelter.

The Good Neighbor Café can be converted into a shelter for overflow guests, especially on cold nights. Due to the cold temperatures on the day of our tour, they expected over 150 men to be sleeping there in the evening. 

Besides the Mission’s main headquarters in Tacoma, there are 4 additional locations throughout Pierce County: Fife, Lakewood and Puyallup-Sumner. They serve men, women, families and children. The Rescue Mission serves more than 26, 000 healthy, nutritious meals monthly to people that would otherwise go hungry. 







They provide shelter to more than 450 people every night and many of the beds are occupied by children.  To learn more about the Rescue Mission in Tacoma visit their website www.rescue-mission.org

Meet Our Members: Community Services of Moses Lake

Community Services of Moses Lake and the Moses Lake Food Bank

By Stephanie Kardos, Harvest Capacity Developer

One of the highlights of a recent WFC staff trip to Eastern Washington was visiting the Moses Lake Food bank.  Peny Archer is the Operations Manager there. She has been with the ML Food Bank since 2010. Peny’s passion was abundant as she showed us around the food bank, distribution center and a newly donated 6 acre parcel of land. 

The land, donated by one of their long term volunteers, is the groundwork for some very exciting long term objectives that they have in Moses Lake. It will host a new location for the food bank, distribution center and eventually a garden / small farm complete with hydroponics.  

Community Services of Moses Lake serves 5 counties: Grant, Adams, Lincoln, Benton and Yakima, a total of 34 food banks.  Collectively this network of food banks feed 11,000 families a month with often 1,000 families just at their ML Food Bank alone.

Also on the tour with us was one of my fellow VISTA Jeni Roberts who participates in the same program as me called Harvest Against Hunger. HAH was developed by Rotary First Harvest.  There are 10 VISTA’s with HAH all around the West Coast who help to develop gleaning and produce recovery programs that support their local hunger relief groups. 

Jeni is starting her second year at Moses Lake and has a great group of volunteers that will be gleaning nearby farms this growing season for fresh produces to share with all the food banks they serve. Last year when HAH was introduced they almost tripled the amount of fresh produce they distributed, and often organizing gleans of 10+ tons of food at one time.   

The positive energy in the food bank was palpable; Peny and her staff are doing exciting things in Moses Lake. Forward thinking ideas and exciting projects.  They even have fun in the office too, sometimes even playfully shooting each other with Nerf Guns.  Community Services of Moses Lake is a great asset for Central Washington.

To learn more visit their website www.mlfood.org





 

Food Lifeline Advocacy Update: Tell them now - Food Banks need support!

The numbers are in. State legislators learned today that they have $30 million more than they expected for the state budget through June 2015, which is fantastic news. Ask them to make food bank funding a priority in Washington's budget. Tell them to fund food banks! An increase in projected revenues means additional funding is available to allocate to programs like the Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP), which help food banks throughout Washington get food to the people who need it most. EFAP funding has not been increased since 2008. An additional $1 million for EFAP could provide up to 3 million meals during the next year, bringing food to the people who need it most. As food banks continue to see record numbers of clients, it’s time to speak out and ask your lawmakers to support food banks in their district by approving a modest increase in funding to EFAP. Your Community Agrees: Food Bank Funding Matters Legislators and community organizations throughout the state are supporting increased funding for food banks. Who in your community signed on?

Reminder: Funding Opportunity with School's Out Washington Only A Few Weeks Away!

Meet Our Members: St. Leo's Food Connection's Backpack Program

by Sariga Santhosh, Development Assistant

Our summit attendees at St. Leo's Food Connection

On February 6th, we hosted our first-ever Winter Food Summit to discuss the issue of community food sourcing in Tacoma. As part of the day’s events, we offered the attendees the opportunity to tour a few local member agencies whose work directly tied into the day’s topics. Our first stop was at St. Leo’s Food Connection to tour their backpack program, which rightfully boasts the title of biggest backpack program in the area during the school year. Currently, the program has enrolled 20% of students eligible for free lunches from 29 schools. Providing each student 2 days’ worth of food, this program reaches an average of 30 students per school, with over 100 students registered in some schools.

Quentin Cole shows us what goes into each backpack

This high-functioning program is mainly volunteer-run and headed by Quentin Cole, the Children’s Feeding Program Coordinator. Recognizing a direct correlation between access to regular meals and students’ academic performance, the backpack program currently serves over 750 students. The program runs on the referrals from school officials like counselors, who identify students at risk of hunger during the weekends.  Each week, Quentin relies on his team of 12-15 regular volunteers to pack bags that consist of dry food, one breakfast item (oatmeal, granola, or something similar), fresh produce gleaned from farmers markets, hearty main meal items (tuna, or soup), potatoes, 2 snack items, and shelf stable milk or juice. In total, the backpacks amount to six kid-friendly meals and snacks for each student to eat over the weekend.

Using the assembly line process, volunteers package enough food to meet 1500 calories per day for each student. 15 weekly volunteer drivers transport the bags to schools, where they are then distributed to students in the program. While primarily operating during the school year, St. Leo’s Food Connection’s Backpack program recently added ‘break boxes’ to feed hungry students during school holidays. Parents pick up boxes that feed their families until school reopens.  This way, no child has to go hungry, even when school is not in session.

Boxes of donated food!

Quentin credits the high degree of community engagement for making the program such a success. From the volunteers who give their time every week to the program to the generous folks who donate food and other supplies, the community has rose to the challenge to take care of its hungry children. Having access to quality food is crucial to the education and development of school-aged children, and programs like St. Leo’s Food Connection meet that critical need in their communities when resources are far and in between. We are grateful for their hard work, and are proud they are part of our coalition that strives to deliver better pathways to driving down hunger all over the state, one community at a time. 

AHNC Week 5 Legislative Update: Fiscal Cutoff and Gearing up for Budget Talks

2014 Legislative Session - Week 5 Anti-Hunger and Nutrition Coalition   Week 5 of the 2014 Legislative Session started with a rush to move bills through the fiscal committee, House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means, by the end of the day Tuesday. Action is also heating up on the Supplemental Budget which we will likely see House and, perhaps, Senates version of after the next revenue forecast on Feb. 19. 2014 Hunger Action Day  Before we shift to Week 5, Week 4 ended with a great Hunger Action Day! More than 200 advocates at United Churches for a morning of information and learning. We were greeted by Rep. Reykdal who shared personal stories about hunger and the importance of food stamps, and spoke eloquently about the need to highlight hunger issues to his colleagues in the legislature. After training in our coalition's shared priorities and advocacy basics, attendees met with more than 70 lawmakers and their staff throughout the afternoon. Thanks to all who participated! And don't forget to send a note to the legislators you met with thanking them for your time. Thanks to the many of you who passed along information and questions from members.  Click here to see pictures from the day! 2014 Hunger Action Day Breakfast After the Bell Bill: The House version of the Breakfast After the Bell bill, HB 2536, was resurrected from the dead last Friday by the House Education Appropriations Committee, HB 2536 was pulled out of the Rules Committee and we expect it to be voted on by the full House at any time.    The Senate version of the bill, SB 6444, died on Tuesday in the Senate Ways and Means Committee which had scheduled the bill for a vote but did not bring it up for a vote prior to the cut-off. ACTION: Contact members of the House ASAP and ask that they vote YES on HB 2536 on the House floor.  State Food Assistance (SFA): Thanks to everyone who delivered information and a copy of our community sign-on letter to legislators on Hunger Action Day.   This week the Children's Alliance changed their budget request for State Food Assistance, responding to considerable feedback that the $4.6 million price-tag was too high this year. Linda also recalculated the cost of full benefits based upon Basic Food policy changes included in the 2014 Farm Bill which was signed by President Obama last Friday. The new budget request is for $1.67 million to restore full SFA benefits on January 1, 2015. This timing would still position State Food Assistance for full funding next biennium. ACTION: An easy way to take action on SFA is to click here and send a message to your legislators.  Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP): Thanks also to everyone who talked about EFAP during your visits last Friday. Yesterday Claire and Katharine delivered the community support letter for EFAP to Rep. Hunter and Sen. Hill.   Over 170 community organizations and 350 individuals throughout the state signed onto the letter.  Click here to see the letter.  Farmers Market Nutrition Programs (FMNP): More than 35 advocates arrived in Olympia for Good Food and Farming lobby day on Tuesday to drum up more support and visibility for funding for Farmers Market Nutrition Programs. Rep. Senn is leading a sign on letter for FMNP in the House and Sen. Billig is leading the Senate letter. We're happy to see a steady and diverse response from lawmakers who represent health, hunger, and agriculture interests. Action: Ask your lawmaker to sign on to the letter before Feb. 18!
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AHNC Advocacy Update: Successful Hunger Action Day and Update on Policy Cutoff

2014 Legislative Session - Week 4 Anti-Hunger and Nutrition Coalition   Thanks to everyone who braved the elements to attend Hunger Action Day on Friday in Olympia!   Our numbers, carrots, and orange scarves made a real impression on the Capitol Campus. Thanks to everyone who made the day work so smoothly - particularly to Kate for her leadership, the entire planning committee for their organization, Rachael for making a zillion appointments, and everyone else involved. If you did not have a chance to write down comments on the meetings you had on Friday, feel free to email Carrie. The information from the meetings is incredibly valuable to folks who are down in Olympia working our issues. As everyone at Hunger Action Day heard on Friday, the first bill cut-off was Friday. If bills had not made it out of their committee of origin, they were dead. This Tuesday is the deadline for bills with fiscal impacts to move out of the House Appropriations or Senate Ways and Means Committee, and by the end of Feb. 18, bills need to be passed by their house of origin to survive. Breakfast After the Bell Bills:  House Bill 2536/Senate Bill 6444   It was an exciting and eventful week for the Breakfast After the Bell bills! HB 2536 appeared to be dead on Wednesday, only to be revived on Friday with passage out of the House Education Appropriations Committee. The Senate version of the bill, SB 6444, was passed on Thursday by the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee. The Senate bill is on the schedule for a hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee this afternoon. The committee may vote on some of the bills heard. ACTION:            If you have compelling stories or quotes about the importance of school meals, childhood hunger in your community, etc., please send them to Lauren McGowan at UWKC, LMcGowan@wukc.org. Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP)   More than 190 organizations and 350 individuals signed on to the community letter of support for additional EFAP funding!  The letter will be delivered to lawmakers this week as a follow up after Hunger Action Day. Thanks to all who signed on!        State Food Assistance (SFA)   The Children's Alliance wrapped up the House member sign on letter and the community sign on letter last week. The community letter has 71 signatures and was distributed as part of the Hunger Action Day packets for legislators. Many thanks to everyone who talked about State Food Assistance in meetings with legislators! As the bill furor calms down, budget conversations will heat up. The next revenue estimate is Feb. 18; we should see the House and Senate Supplemental budget shortly after.      Farmers Market Nutrition Programs    Rep. Tana Senn wrote and is circulating a sign-on letter from members of the House urging Rep. Hunter to include $500,000 in the budget to invest in the WIC and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Programs.   ACTION: Click here to see the letter, share it with your representatives, and ask them to sign on.    Federal Update:  2014 Farm Bill Signed Into Law    The 2014 Farm Bill passed both the US House and Senate and this past Friday, February 7th, was signed into law by President Obama.   While there were some wins in the final bill, we were very disappointed to see that the 2014 Farm Bill included a cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the amount of $8.6 billion over 10 years. This will result in 232,000 Washington households experiencing a drop in benefits up to $90 per month.    Read the new WithinReach blog to learn more about what the Farm Bill is and what the version that passed means, both the good and the bad.  Again, thanks to everyone who attended Hunger Action Day or signed the online petition!! Please don't forget to follow your Friday meetings with a short note to thank your members for their time and consideration. Follow us on