The Capital Area Food Bank is currently in need of volunteers for this Friday, January 6 from 1 – 4 pm; and Saturday, January 7 from 9 – 12 am.  We are looking for individuals or large groups to help pack bags for our Kids Cafe and Weekend Bag Programs. 

If you are still on vacation or just looking for a way to get involved in the community, please click here for more information.

The food bank always needs volunteers.  So the next time your school, organization, businesss or church is looking for a community service activity, stop by the food bank and donate your time.

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.

The Snack Box program delivers healthy snack ingredients along with recipes and educational materials to Kids Café sites so that site leaders can engage in interactive, educational snack preparation with children.

Valencia Jackson, our new Kids Cafe® Nutrition Education Trainer, created this snack and lesson during her first month on the job! The purpose of the lesson was to talk about fruits and reinforce the USDA’s new guidelines to fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables. Valencia created an educational activity where kids attach their favorite fruits to half of their breakfast, lunch, and dinner plates – because fruit makes every meal a party! Valencia distributed the Snack Box to 21 sites, providing resources to Kids Cafe site leaders to make snack time healthy, educational, and fun.

Valencia is packing up the October Snack Box lesson – Half Moon Veggie Pita – today. This lesson will focus on the benefits of vegetables and will again reinforce the recommendation to fill half you plate with fruits and vegetables.

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!

We just finished our eighth week of the Farm Youth Initiative and despite this summer’s heat, our kids seem to love getting out of the city to visit Clagett Farm.  A joint venture of the CAFB and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Clagett is a 285-acre, certified organic farm located in Upper Marlboro, MD.  The FYI program consists of a two-day nutrition and gardening class for children from Kids Cafe sites in the Washington metropolitan area.  FYI education themes change every growing season, with this year’s theme centered on every child’s favorite thing – snack time!

The first day is a one-hour session on how to read an ingredient list in order to tell if you have a healthy snack.  The class uses hands-on demonstrations and activities to keep the kids interested including getting to prepare a snack together in groups.  The “edu-tainment” continues the next day with games and activities at Clagett Farm.  Students plant, water and harvest fresh vegetables from the “pizza” and “pasta” ingredient gardens.  Then, they make a healthy pasta salad together with the freshly picked vegetables.  They also get to play in the sprinkler and feed crickets to the Clagett chickens.

Close to 200 children participated in the program this summer.  The Farm Youth Initiative is a truly collaborative project.  The program works across a number of departments within the food bank, including the Food for Kids, Harvest for Health and the Nutrition Education departments. This year, FYI operated at 11 different sites in and around DC, with some sites participating more than once. 

As part of the Fresh Produce Grant shared between the CAFB and Clagett Farm, every child who goes through the two-day course receives a ½ CSA share, which works out to about 75 pounds of fresh, organic produce for every site who participates in the program.  In addition to the CSA shares the students take home with corresponding recipes, participants harvested over 145 pounds of fresh produce.

As one young participant put it, “This is more fun than all you can eat pizza and wing night at my summer camp!”

We couldn’t agree more.

In the Food For Kids Department, our Kids Cafe and Weekend Bag sites often invite us to attend their events and to distribute information about the services we provide across the food bank.  We distribute  fliers and handouts on Hunger Lifeline, SNAP benefits, Kids Cafe and Weekend Bag, tasty recipes, tour cards, and more.  We provide give-aways and food samples that promote healthy eating and key nutrition messages.

Meleah Boyle, MD Kids Cafe/Weekend Bag Coordinator at the recent Rock Creek Terrace Community Day

Rock Creek Terrace Apartments (part of Edgewood Management Corporation) in Rockville, MD recently held a community day event for their apartment complex and invited us to set up a booth.  Their community center participates in both Kids Cafe and Weekend Bag, serving up to 60 children a day.  We had a wonderful time talking with people – chatting about the programs that their community center has for their children, answering questions about other services, and giving out samples of a delicious black bean salsa recipe that can be made with common Weekend Bag items.

At community events, we have the unique opportunity to talk with people with every type of interest in the food bank – those needing our services, interested in volunteering, wanting to donate, or just wanting to find out who we are.  Community events bring us together with different groups, inspire interest in our mission, and keep us connected with those in need.

For the past three years, the Washington Nationals have partnered with the Capital Area Food Bank to organize food drives during the summer months when our food  donations are typically slow.  But not only do they assist in donating food, the Nats team players put the food where their mouth is and donate their time by volunteering in the warehouse!

Recently, Ryan Mattheus, pitcher for the Nationals, visited the food bank along with Harris Teeter team members – Ronnie Cash, Bob Smith, Duanne Inskeep, Renne Kifus, Chris Pyne, and CAFB Board Member Dan Marett – to help pack bags for our Weekend Bag Program. 

We even had a surprise visit from Harry the Happy Dragon, Harris Teeter’s mascot!

Ryan and the Harris Teeter team helped to pack 500 Weekend Bags that were distributed to Kids Cafe sites in the DC Metro area.  The Weekend Bag program is a national program of Feeding America ,where we work with partner sites to distribute bags of food to youth for the weekend.  We send 5-7 pounds of food including breakfast, lunch/supper and snack items, as well as a mix of the food groups.  The bags have kid-friendly items and items that a parent or caretaker is able to prepare.

We thank The Washington Nationals, Ryan Mattheaus and Harris Teeter for thier commitment to serving the individuals in our community and look forward to hosting them again next year!

Donations and volunteers have always been a crucial part of the work completed at the Capital Area Food Bank.  Luckily, one volunteer took her efforts to the next level by organizing a canned food drive in order to support the Food For Kids department!  Deb Roeber and her son Dalton are involved with the West Springfield Little League and organized a competition between little league teams to see who could provide the most items.

Food for Kids staff in NOVA worked with Deb, who secures other donations such as tickets from the Nationals, for WSLL events.   When asked about where she developed her desire to assist the community and the CAFB Deb said that:

“My son Dalton inspired me to give back as he volunteered at your Kids Cafe in March to earn hours for the national junior honor society. Dalton needed some more hours so we both thought of the idea to join his favorite sport and give back. Here we thought why not have his fellow teammates and friends he plays ball with give back as well. The community always support us so we wanted to help others. We hope to continue to give back to the food bank in the years to come!”

People like Deb, and all volunteers enhance the quality of work we are able to complete here at the food bank.  I enjoy the opportunity to get to work with people like her and other CAFB staff who are dedicated to addressing hunger problems in the Washington metro area!

Truck full of donations from Little League teams

Over the course of one month, this team of 11, thoughtfully named Moose 1, truly served as an integral piece to our ‘community response to hunger.’  The team split their 40-hour work week between farming and gardening at Clagett Farm, performing SNAP outreach at out Mobile Pantry sites, as well as helping our Food For Kids department with packing Kids Cafe boxes and assisting at our Kids Cafe sites.

Despite having to wake up at the crack of dawn every morning to perform their morning team building activities, the team always carried along a smile and the willingness and eagerness to serve.  This inspiring and dynamic group of individuals made a huge impression on our hearts and in the communities we serve.

We hope that this experience was as influential and meaningful to them as it was to the food bank, our partners and the people we serve.  If you are a nonprofit organization in need of a group of dedicated individuals to work on a specific project for special amount of time, I would highly recommend you consider applying for a team of AmeriCorps NCCC volunteers.  The amount of work this team was able to accomplish in such a short span of time was incredible and worth every minute!

Thank you team Moose 1 and we wish you the best in all of your future service projects!

AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps is working with the Capital Area Food Bank to end hunger in the Washington metro region.   

Together, the food bank and NCCC transport thousands of vegetables; assist D.C. residents with food stamp applications; teach kids the importance of a healthy diet; and package food for after school/ summer programs for children – all in an effort to end hunger in the nation’s capital.  The members of NCCC were humbled and inspired by Brian Banks, the CAFB’s Director of Public Policy and Community Outreach, who recently delivered a short and powerful message. 

“Hunger can happen everywhere.  People come home from work and the kids ask, ‘What’s for dinner?’  Mom or dad goes to open that refrigerator and all they see is a bright light.  What we do here with the help of volunteers like you is to help feed people and educate the general public about hunger in our communities.”  

The team, Moose 1, work three days a week at Clagett Farm in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, toiling away in the fields planting thousands of potatoes, egg plants, zucchinis, peas and peppers – all of which will either be sold to shareholders or donated to the CAFB.  Volunteers also mend broken fence posts, weed fields, stack hay, and transplant vegetable cuttings into larger pots to help them grow.  Each day at the farm brings a new challenge to Moose 1; and each day the team tackles these challenges with enthusiasm and high spirits.

Moose 1 works at both the D.C. and NOVA warehouses for the remainder of the week.  In the morning, Moose 1 goes into the community, informs residents about the SNAP Program and gets them started with the application process.  In the afternoon, Moose 1 sorts and packs meals for the Kids Cafe program, and also visits Kids Cafe sites to teach school-aged children about the importance of nutrition.  It is a real treat for Moose 1 to interact with members of the community and to hear their stories.  After each encounter, team members walk away with a smile knowing they have made a positive impact on another’s life.

Written  by:  Mike Rood and Stephanie Snyder