Letter From Kent

On February 23, the NWAFB held our annual agency conference at the Jones Center in Springdale. We had a near capacity crowd with over half of our partner agencies in attendance. In addition to staff updates on pounds in/pounds out, our retail rescue program, an update on our agency capacity grant program and the introduction of our plans to work with agencies to develop a profile of their clients, those in attendance heard how to engage college students from Angela Oxford of the U of A. Kudos to all the staff for their efforts but a special thanks goes out to Barb Carter for her role in making this the best agency meeting I have ever attended. For those of you keeping track, you might think, golly Kent, that is only two….but remember that I served on the Food Bank Board of Directors for six years with my term expiring in 2014 so I have been to a few of these. I look for these conferences to continue to grow in the ways that benefit the agencies in the future. Thanks to each of you who attended.

I have several ideas of how to improve the NWAFB bouncing around in my head all the time, but one of the first steps I feel like we have to make to become the best we can be is to determine exactly who is going to our partner agencies. Those of you at the agency conference met Casey Cowan, our Director of Client Data. Simply put, Casey’s role is to work with the partner agencies to build a profile of a typical client. Do they work; how large is their family; how many food pantries do they have to go to in a month to serve their needs are just a few of the questions we hope to answer. I’m excited to announce we have found the software we want to use to begin this important task of tracking. Before everyone gets all freaked out, please understand that this plan will be rolled out systematically and it may take a few years to gather the information. As you will hear in the future, hopefully about many different topics, the NWAFB is a trendsetter in this type of research. We are headed into unchartered territory, but if we truly have the mission of attacking hunger, we have to know where we are now before we can see where we are going. I know our peers across the state and across the Feeding America network are looking to us, eagerly anticipating to see how we convert the data we will receive into a plan of action.

Last Saturday, the Food Bank staff and 55 of our agencies were joined by approximately 50 University of Arkansas athletes on campus for Tyson’s Lift up America event at which a truckload of chicken was donated to our agencies. If you missed my interview on KNWA, the main sound bite I want to share is how excited I was to see the young people getting involved in helping their fellow man. They are the next generation of Food Bank presidents, or food panty volunteers. If this group of young people is typical, the future looks bright.

In closing, I want to express my deepest appreciation to our corporate donors and the individuals who support us either financially or with your time. Without those commitments of time, talent and treasure we could not do what we do in the fight against hunger. Last Saturday, I said that if even one person in our service area is without food, that is too many. Together with your help, progress is being made. My thanks go out to each and every one of you…because of you someone will eat today. Have a great spring… Stop by when you have a few minutes. I would love to give you a tour and let you see first -hand what we do.