His words continue to call us to do right. 

As the staff gathered in the food bank’s conference room, many shared their experiences working at the food bank.  A new member of the CAFB family, Roxann Seals, offered the following sentiments:

“On December 12, 2011, I became the 100^th member of the CAFB.  In my short time here I have been welcomed and made to feel a part of the CAFB family!

With the expansion of the food bank, I have the opportunity to be a part of history. I have a passion for life and moving forward; I am so very pleased to be part of the team that is moving the food bank forward to its rightful place as the premier food bank in the country!”

So heeding Dr. King’s word, we here at the food bank recognize the overwhelming suffering that people in our community face today and dedicate our energies to ensuring that all may eat and be a part of this grand family called the United States of America. 

She shared her thoughts on the issue of hunger via a White House blog:

Lynn continued:

To read the entire blog post, click here. 

The Champions of Change program was created as part of President Obama’s Winning the Future initiative.  Each week, a different issue is highlighted and groups of Champions, ranging from educators to entrepreneurs to community leaders, are recognized for the work they are doing to better their communities.

Capital Area Food Bank President and CEO Lynn Brantley was honored today at the White House as a Champion of Change. She was among ten local leaders who were highlighted for their efforts in improving the lives of others through charitable work, faith and advocacy. 

The Champions of Change program was created as part of President Obama’s Winning the Future initiative.  Each week, a different issue is highlighted and groups of Champions, ranging from educators to entrepreneurs to community leaders, are recognized for the work they are doing to better their communities. 

Brantley has dedicated much of her life to the issue of hunger and believes that having nutritious food is a basic human right. 

See the event in its entirety below:

With any purchase of Unto Others Jewelry, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the CAFB. 

Wharton partnered with the food bank earlier this year to help raise awareness about local hunger and has participated in numerous CAFB initiatives. 

So show off your unique sense of fashion and help the thousands of families, children and seniors in our community struggling to get one of life’s most basic needs – food.

In an effort to prioritize good health, the Capital Area Food Bank works with local farms, farmers markets and local food projects to get more fresh produce into the hands of our low-income neighbors.   Through Share the Harvest Gift Project, every dollar enables more families in this area to receive additional fresh produce and improve their health. 

When you purchase a gift in someone’s name, you’ve made it possible for us to partner with more local farms and purchase extra fresh produce for people in need.  It doesn’t stop there.  The Capital Area Food Bank offers a wide variety of nutrition education classes that help people make the most of the fresh produce they receive.  Additionally, youth are engaged through garden and cooking programs that weave the message of nutrition into tangible activities.   Your contribution helps us train leaders at social service organizations to be nutrition educators in their own communities. 

Please help us work for long-term solutions by sourcing locally grown produce and providing people with not only the healthiest food, but also the educational tools they need to improve their own health now and in the future.

To find out more about Share the Harvest please click here.

Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church, one of the Capital Area Food Bank’s community partners, is going above and beyond the call to feed those in need by combining their regular food distributions with informative nutrition education classes.  On Wednesday, November 9^th, I attended one of these classes, which are held at the church’s social hall.  About 25 people of all ages turned out to learn from Reverend Carolyn Scales, who runs the hour-long sessions. 

Reverend Scales is a 2009 graduate of the food bank’s Nutrition Education Department’s pilot Health Ambassador Program, which helps partner organizations supplement food distribution with healthy learning.   Reverend Scales oversees a majority of the food distributions and has managed the church’s participation in the food bank’s From the Ground Up Fresh Produce Grant for the past two years.   

Reverend Scales educates class participants on key aspects of nutrition, such as limiting the consumption of fats, salts, sugars and increasing fiber intake and exercise level.  Seeing food distribution coupled with simple health education was inspiring and indicative of a step in the right direction for a healthy approach to hunger relief.  During the Thanksgiving holiday, Allen Chapel A.M.E.’s policy is that clients must attend at least three of Reverend Scales’ classes in order to receive a turkey from the food pantry.   

Classes begin with Reverend Scales asking clients if they are having a “good food week”—had they applied prior lessons to their daily eating habits.  The classes at Allen Chapel are open forum discussion and Reverend Scales serves as the moderator.  This allows community partners to share advice, support and suggestions.  Almost everyone in the class, for example, expressed struggling with removing sodas and sugary “from-concentrate” fruit juices from their diets.  Such discussions prove helpful especially to those participants that may feel defeated after a “bad food week.” 

Reverend Scales’ charisma and love for her clients made for a surprisingly emotional class! At Allen Chapel A.M.E., it’s hard not to be inspired when talking about nutrition—a subject which might otherwise not be so riveting.  One thing that really stood out for me in the class was Reverend Scales’ emphasis on the dignity of the individual when talking about eating right.  She encourages her clients to remember the old saying “you are what you eat” – reminding them that life is too precious to make food choices that could shorten it or diminish its quality. Knowledge is power and this sense of empowerment is something that truly has helped move the Allen Chapel community forward in their ministries to help those struggling with hunger.

Greater Access to Produce

The community center at Southern Ridge Apartments, a Community and Preservation Development Corporation property in Ward 8 is a Kids Cafe site and was chosen to be part of this pilot initiative. Through the Kids Cafe program, Southern Ridge receives snacks and suppers to serve to kids ages 5-18 who attend the center every day after school.  In an effort to combine education and greater access to nutritious fresh produce, we held two cooking demonstrations for residents of Southern Ridge. Through an established relationship with the Ward 8 Farmers Market and this grant, we were able to offer any resident who attended the demonstrations $20 to purchase fresh produce items at the market held at THEARC.

Cooking Demonstrations

Food For Kids Manager Grace Lichaa led both cooking demonstrations.  She chose fresh produce items that would be accessible at the farmers market and used them to make great fall foods. In September, Grace made sweet potato chips in the toaster oven and collard greens cooked with onions, sliced crisp apples and vegetable broth. The collard greens brought on a great discussion of the many ways residents cook their own collard greens!

At the next cooking demonstration in October, which had another great turn-out of new residents and return guests, Grace made sweet potato black bean soup… in the microwave, with the option of topping off the soup with fresh cilantro purchased at the market.  This was a big hit!  She also made massaged kale salad with a fresh lemon and garlic dressing.

These cooking demonstrations have been a great success. Twenty dollars for produce and the sharing of food and ideas is a huge incentive to bring people to the community center, but the cooking demonstrations have proven to be more than this. Residents come together and make connections with each other, share events, such as a turkey give-away in time for Thanksgiving, at a local church, Ms. Cora Clark-Miles, the Resident Services Manager is able to spread the word about the many free trainings and events she is hosting for the residents, and most of all, a sense of community is instilled in those in attendance.

Thanks to our friends at Common Good City Farm, we were introduced to Mindy Mitchell, who not only made the beautiful signage around our small garden but also worked with our staff to create the mural illustration.

Then a year went by, then another and maybe another…I can’t even remember – but no group, no individual, nobody was interested in making a mural on the side of a shed.  And so the beautiful illustration just sat in a file.

But then, through a friend of a friend (you know how that works) a connection was made and our team was put in contact with Katherine Elkins, the Visual Arts Teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria. After looking for years for a community group, the perfect person just fell into our lap!  The partnership couldn’t have been more perfect.   The high school would benefit from an exciting off-site art project while learning about the work that the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Capital Area Food Bank do at Clagett Farm.  And the FYI program benefited exponentially by having a beautiful mural painted by volunteers.

Ms. Elkins decided to project the image onto the shed for students to trace, so with numerous orange extension cords snaking their way around basil and parsley plants we found a power source.  We used a combination of rain barrels and wooden boards to balance the projector and laptop.  Of course the “best place” for this balancing act ended up being directly in the middle of our Pizza Garden. 

But alas, no luck, it was too bright a day for the projection to actually be visible. And that is where the really impressive work began.  Ms. Elkins immediately set to work organizing a few students who would work with her to make the freehand sketch, while I took the other students on a tour of the farm.

By the time we returned from the tour the image outline was up. The students were phenomenal workers!  While one team worked on the mural others took turns eating their lunch, catching up on other class assignments and exploring the farm.  Within a few hours the painting was nearly complete.

 A few weeks later a handful of students and Ms. Elkins came back to the farm to add a few finishing touches and voila!  The project that took years to get off the ground was done!

Not enough can be said about Ms. Elkins’ leadership.  Without her extra effort in so many areas none of this would have been possible.  The students were thoroughly inspiring – they are talented artists, joyful individuals and cooperative teammates.  My day with them was thoroughly a delight.

 Ms. Elkins and her class made the garden space at Clagett Farm a warm and inviting space for the nearly 200 children that used that garden this summer through the FYI program. 

Today marks the inaugural Food Day, an initiative created by the Center for Science in the Public Interest to inspire Americans to think about their relationship with food.  Modeled after Earth Day, Food Day is intended to generate recognition of the challenges we face in changing the way we think about, produce and consume food in America.  The goal of Food Day is to start a movement to “Eat Real” in communities across the country –  it is the hope of Food Day activists and organizers that today will mark the beginning of the transformation of the American Diet.

To celebrate Food Day, the food bank’s Harvest For Health Department has teamed up with the National WIC Association to provide gardening and healthy eating education to mothers and children at a WIC Clinic in Anacostia.  Participants will learn how easy, valuable and fun gardening can be with children, and better understand how gardening can help grow healthy eaters at a young age.  We will read great gardening children stories, learn about what plants need to grow, transplant peas to grow in a sunny windowsill and taste fresh and easy to grow produce.

Today’s celebration serves as a great marker of the work that the Capital Area Food Bank and all of our partners do daily!  Everyday, the agencies that we work with create access to food and feed those struggling with hunger in the Washington metro area.  The food bank’s commitment to fresh produce and partnership with regional farmers increases the availability of real and equitable food in our warehouse.  The education and capacity building initiatives of our programs raise awareness about healthy eating and living.  All of these things and more empower us daily to feed hope, nourish change and create sustainability, making the work of the food bank an example of Food Day’s Guiding Principles in action!

Visit the Food Day to learn more about how you can join the “Eat Real” movement and take a moment to encourage Congress to support Food Day’s goals by clicking here.

Happy Food Day!

School is back in session.  Pop quiz!  How many children live in food insecure homes in the United States?   What percentage of children live in food insecure households in Washington, D.C.?  According to the USDA statistics, about 16 million children live in food insecure households.  This means that they don’t know where their next meal will come from.  Here in D.C., 32.3 percent of children live in food insecure households.  

Tests, projects and homework make school tough enough but adding the element of hunger makes these essential pieces of school almost impossible.  It is tough to concentrate on an empty stomach.  At the Capital Area Food Bank, we are striving to ensure that kids all across the region ace their tests!  As school gets back into full swing, we are working throughout the region to reach school-aged children and their families.

In the Food For Kids Department  we are spending our evenings and weekends at Back-to-School programs in order to talk to children and their families about the afterschool and weekend meals we are providing through our Kids Cafe and Weekend Bag programs.  In addition to talking about our programs, we are disseminating health information, books and school supplies.  Spending time with us is the Public Policy and Community Outreach department spreading the word about SNAP benefits.  Partner Relations has given us information to share about our Hunger Life Line-a tool connecting community members to food in their area.

The next time you see a food bank staff person in your neighborhood or school, give them a high five for their work on helping eliminate hunger in our area.  They deserve some extra credit!