Food Bank Breakout Session June 2008

1. Food Bank Breakout Session June 2008

2. California Association of Food Banks • Member Organization with 43 Member Food Banks Across California. • CAFB has five main program areas: • Farm to Family • Public Policy • Food Stamp Outreach • Nutrition Education • Member Services and Development

3. About Food Banks • Food Banks warehouse and distribute food. • They do this through their networks of food pantries, shelters, soup kitchens, rehab facilities and other community organizations. • Food banks serve only people who are low-income – under 185% of poverty. • Some food banks have direct service programs like mobile pantries, kids cafés or backpack programs.

4. Nutrition Education at Food Banks • Some food banks have had nutrition programs since their inception. • Other’s still have no nutrition education programming. • Some of these are partnering with county health departments to fill the gap, others are not. • CAFB sees Nutrition Education as a core strategy to achieving our mission.

5. CAFB Nutrition Education Program • One of the first Non-profit Incentive Awardees for Nutrition Education in CA. • In FFY07-08, we had 14 NE Subcontracting agencies, 13 were food banks. • FFY08-09, we will have 22 NE Subcontracting agencies, 15 of them will be food banks. • This summer, we will release a case study of our Nutrition Education Partners.

6. Nutrition Education & Farm to Family • Food banks are combining their Nutrition Education Programs with Farm to Family Distributions. • Introduce CA fresh fruits and vegetables to low-income Californians. • CAFB hopes to jointly release a Farm to Family Nutrition Education Manual with Network this year. Programming will follow. • This year, CAFB implementing regular calls and meetings with subcontractors.

7. Steering Committee • There is currently an effort underway to improve and enhance food bank’s nutrition education programming and policies around nutritious eating. • This work is being funded by MAZON. A survey they did with their grantees about nutrition education and healthy food policy attached.

8. Healthy Food Policies • California Food Banks are among the first to implement healthy food policies. • Role of donations in food banking makes policies difficult to implement. • Food Banks face same challenges that other institutions face in setting healthy food policies: costs, how to define, implementation.

9. New Programming = New Tools • Food Banks have been finding new routes to distribution that make healthy food programming easier. • Bin distributions at after school or pantry sites make produce distribution easier. • Kid’s Cafés offer great locations for NE. • Mobile pantries create farmer’s market environment where NE can be provided.

10. Working with Food Banks on NE • Meet with Food Banks before setting your goals and defining your SOW. • Be sure that your contribution is an added benefit and values existing efforts. • Work with food banks to bring healthier food and funding for programming. • Allow the food bank opportunities to build their own internal NE and healthy food programs.

11. THANK YOU!