Each spring and fall the Food For Kids team organizes Community Forums for the Kids Cafe® and Weekend Bag site leaders that run these children’s food programs. Fifty-nine site leaders participated in the latest round of Community Forums held on March 24th & 25th. Special thanks go to Allen Chapel AME Church and Fairlington Community Center for hosting our groups!
During the meetings, many representatives from the food bank interacted with the site leaders. Our Nutrition Education Department gathered feedback on the types of programming they are most interested in and the progress of the Snack Box and Kids Cook! programs after one year. Representatives from Public Policy & Community Outreach shared SNAP resources. Harvest For Health distributed information about this summer’s Farm Youth Initiative program, and passed out applications to excited site leaders.
The Food For Kids team lead a session on best practices, during which selected site leaders from across the region shared ideas from their individual programs, giving all site leaders the unique opportunity to learn from one another. Each Kids Cafe Coordinator had a breakout session with their sites, and discussed timely region-specific information. The Weekend Bag Coordinator received information from sites during a special lunch session.
The forums are a wonderful opportunity to bring together site leaders from across the metro area to share ideas, learn from each other, and receive resources from the food bank. When asked what they most liked about the Forums, many site leaders echoed the thoughts from one leader who stated, “Giving everyone a chance to talk about their experience.” We are already looking forward to the next meetings this fall!