Hunger Across the Network in Portage County

Patrick Childers (: 00:00

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Patrick Childers (: 00:06

And I remember seeing this video at like a Rotary Club meeting or something. And it was just this simple depiction of a little girl who didn't have food in her fridge and what that meant for her. And it was a cartoon. Tears welled up in my eyes. said, my God, how in the world can a cartoon make me feel this way? And I remember thinking at that time, if a nonprofit in this community has a communications department that can create something so impactful, I need to work there. Hi, I'm Patrick and this is my brother. Hi, I'm Ben.

As with the quote from a food bank worker you just heard, we think it's so important to create impact at the community level. Yep. And that's why we're here today to talk about a universal problem. Food insecurity. We're focusing this mini-series on the small corner of Northeast Ohio where we grew up. Portage County. And the food insecurity it's experienced post-COVID. You'll hear some stories about the good folks in Northeast Ohio doing everything they can to help feed hungry people. And we hope that it moves you as well. That's right. Throughout this series, you'll learn about how this issue affects so many people.

and about the various structures in place that are fighting back. Last episode, we began with civil servants working for the county. This episode, we'll move to mid-size organizations helping with food insecurity relief. In the third installment, we'll see examples of food pantries in action. And in the final episode, we'll answer the question, what can we do to help as individuals, as citizens? Along the way, we hope to show how each of these levels plays a distinctly integral part in a much needed system, and how unifying all of these facets is so essential.

Thanks for joining us. This is United Relief.

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Patrick Childers (: 01:54

Hi, I'm Heather Renown. I'm Director of Development and Marketing for United Way Portage County. So next Ben and I find ourselves at United Way Portage County HQ, which is just about a mile and a half down the street in Ravenna, Ohio from where we met with John Kennedy, the treasurer. They used to share this building with a bank. The bank was on the ground floor with offices on the floors above. Now we're in the basement and

We're right next to an empty vault, which seems kind of apt because we're down here talking about economic hardship and the struggles that United Way faces trying to get funds and get them to the right people. But before we get to that, let's get to know Bill and Heather a little bit. was in journalism for 26 years, being a native of Portage County and working in a newspaper in Portage County.

I was really familiar with sort of the needs. While I was at the newspaper, I worked with United Way of Portage County for the workplace campaign. And then I also volunteered to go out and visit the social service agencies that we've, that United Way funds did that for about 10 years and then lost my job at the newspaper. And it just so happened that the job came open at United Way. And I was just really thrilled because it was really something that I enjoyed doing as a volunteer.

Thanks. then Bill, go ahead and introduce yourself. Bill Childers, president and CEO of United Way of Portage County, Ohio. Now, before we go any further, yes, Bill Childers does share a last name with my brother and I because he is our father, which probably has something to do with why we are so adamant about getting involved in the social impact sector ourselves.

acute care hospitals for 18 years, making sure people had access to healthcare. Then I got into the 10 years in mental healthcare and then at United Way, nine years. Now you might hear some background noise during our interview and that's because United Way now shares this building with the Portage County Health District, who's gearing up and mobilizing in the next room. They're coincidentally hosting a pop-up food pantry in collaboration with the Akron Ketten Food Bank, who we'll be visiting shortly.

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and the Center of Hope in Ravenna. It's worth noting that there are already a half a dozen cars lined up to receive food, and they still have over two hours until the food giveaway begins. We'll head outside at some point and chat with the folks passing out the food in the freezing cold, but for now let's stay in the warm where it's well over 24 degrees. How does United Way prioritize food insecurity as a strategic pillar? So we have, we have programs that we

fund at the Center of Hope in Ravenna and at Kent Social Services. We also fund housing related organizations that also have a food component. The other kind of overlay for United Way is a United Way Emergency Food and Shelter Program. The national program funded through an appropriation through Congress and it gets dispersed through FEMA and then all these other social service programs.

are required by the national emergency food and shelter program of United Way to serve on a local board. And then that local board has the authority to authorize funding of food and shelter and utility programs within, in our case, Portage County. But that program funds an emergency food and shelter program in every county in the United States, 4,000 counties.

The 1,100 United Ways that overlay those 4,000 counties get that funding and then award it locally to organizations that are doing that. In our case, the food component has for some 40 years gone to an organization called Change Hunger, a network of food pantries that are all around Portage County. And that way by having that larger network,

get the funding, the funding goes out proportional to how much food those pantries are serving on a monthly basis. The total amount of money you're talking about isn't a lot. It's like $66,000 for Portage County. It feels like one of the main things that United Way does is it acts as a connector inside of Portage County between smaller organizations like Rural Relief.

Patrick Childers (: 06:42

larger organizations like the African Food Bank, right? And you're kind of positioned as an organization to try and help bridge these connections and to build collaboration. And so what does that partnership look like when it's effective? It's getting more food opportunities out to lots more people. It changed hunger. So there are the regular food pantries.

that actually get funding through that. now lately we've had some organizations say, Hey, we don't need the funding, but we want to be part of change hunger. We've got enough funding or we, you know, one is Kent State. Flash is fighting hunger. have the health district, the Kent city health department's new monthly pop-up pantries, not to mention churches and other small orgs in the community. And United Way tries to let people know about these because while there are more and more people showing up,

to these food pantry pop-ups? There are so many more people who need these resources and don't know where to find them. It's a lot of work to find where can I get food this week or where can I go? And there's a lot of places, you really, I mean, it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to sort of figure out where they are, how can I get there? So one of the main ways they help people answer those questions is through 211, a free helpline available in all 50 states.

that connects folks in need with resources and services. It's like 911, but for non-emergencies. United Way is part of that network, helping to secure funding, referring callers to 211, and responding to requests themselves. 211 gets 6,000 calls a year. It gets 10,000. Online search. Online search, yeah. And there's over 700 organizations have their programs listed on 211. So that's where a lot of the

stuff comes together. So while United Way has so many partners to help with their mission, funding remains a challenge. When the pandemic happened, United Way's board approved reducing the funding for their community funded partners by 25%. And they haven't been able to add that back in. And it is interesting, you know, we hear a lot about, the economy is better in all these different metrics at the macro level and at the national level. up 160,000 people that live in Portage County, about 64,000 of them

Patrick Childers (: 09:06

don't have enough money to make everything happen. And so in order to raise enough money, United Way utilizes a few different tactics. One of them is direct mail, which is a catch-all for asking individuals for donations, they do through the mail. do that through social media, we do that through fundraisers. And any other way to get in front of individuals. The next tier is a structured initiative called a workplace campaign, where they approach a company to encourage employees to participate in a specific activity, whether it's donating a portion of their paycheck, maybe a

buck or two here or there, or coming in and volunteering like how Heather first got involved with the organization. And then you also have grants. Now, grants are a big source of funding in what Heather spends a lot of her time doing, but a lot of these are restricted funds. And remember, United Way raises funds for a lot of different organizations that may not be in the scope of any given grants restricted funds. So they often apply for grants to fund their in-house programs, which then frees up

funds for them to use for other organizations. Right now those are our three biggest funding methods and we just sort of try and expand those wherever we can.

Patrick Childers (: 10:13

And so with that, Ben and I head over to the Akron Canton Food Bank to meet up with our tour guides. First, we'll hear from Raven. I'm Raven Gayhart. And then later we'll hear from Brooke. I'm Brooke Durow. How did you get involved in food? So I...

So I am the oldest of four with a single mom. And so I remember at the age of like 13 or 14 when my parents got divorced, I remember like my mom struggling. I remember being extremely ashamed of the fact that we needed food stamps. And at that time I didn't understand like what she was going through. I didn't understand the magnitude of what it meant to raise a family on a single income. And I think that that grit has always been with me, especially as the oldest of four, right? Helping to take care of my siblings.

she went back to work. And so I've always been interested in.

the nonprofit world, I've always been interested in basic human rights. like food is one of our basic necessities. You can't learn, or thrive if you have an empty stomach, regardless of your age, regardless of where you come from, what you do, food is something that we all need. so long story long, I did two years of service with the AmeriCorps VISTA program, similar to the Peace Corps, but domestic. My first year was actually at Family and Community Services in Portage County. Then I worked at a not-for-profit downtown.

My day-to-day was easy. I really enjoyed the people that I worked with but at the end of each day it was like Who am I helping? How am I serving? What am I doing here? And I'll never forget. I saw a video you never asked for this long of an explanation I'll never forget. I saw a marketing video for the food bank and you should go to our YouTube channel look this up, but it was a cartoon

Patrick Childers (: 12:00

a little redheaded girl named Kate, and it was hungry Kate. And I remember seeing this video at like a Rotary Club meeting or something, and it was just this simple depiction of a little girl who didn't have food in her fridge and what that meant for her. And it was a cartoon. Tears welled up in my eyes. said, my God, how in the world can a cartoon make me feel this way? And I remember thinking at that time, if a nonprofit in this community has a communications department that can create something so impactful.

I need to work there. And so I would check back every couple years to see if they were hiring because it's a small communications department here. And five years ago on August 27th, I started here. Every department is so instrumental in making sure that food gets out the store and into the community. And I just, I love it. Every day I go home, I know I helped feed someone. So it's a pretty awesome place. So here we are at the food bank surrounded by

palates and shelves of food.

in our region and distribute it to people in need. Basically, they decided to pull their resources together, create a centralized hub, and this allowed them to streamline their asks to the various retail partners, manufacturers, wholesalers in the area that were getting rid of surplus food, going to the landfill, and instead bringing it back to one facility to get it out to charities that were distributing food to people in need. So food banking in general started in the 60s, hop in at any point in time, okay?

when the claim was put forward that hunger had been eradicated in Western countries. A claim that was completely unsubstantiated. And the decades after the Second World War, various programs emerged such as the food stamp program, while soup kitchens continued to attract lines of hungry people. Around that time, in Phoenix, Arizona, John Van Hengel was dissatisfied with the limited efficiency and started looking for improvements. After meeting a single mother with 10 children,

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who pointed out the amount of throwaway food available in grocery store dumpsters, he started collecting food that was still good for human consumption, but no longer saleable by supermarkets. Again, he found a mother searching for food in a dumpster for her children. Shortly after he founded the world's first food bank, St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance in 1967. It not only helped to feed the hungry, but also helped to solve the inexcusable wastage of perfectly edible food by the commercial food industry.

Soon, similar initiatives emerged in other cities throughout the US. By the time John Van Hengel died at the age of 83, American food banks were providing food for about 23 million citizens daily, feeding hungry people, just like our food bank here in Akron. I think that the biggest misconception for many community members is what does hunger look like in our community? And here at our food bank, we know that more than half of the folks that we serve are children under the age of 18.

to live on a fixed income. In: 2021

pounds of food go to waste in this country every year. So if we have all of this excess food, why are we limitations? Why are we making people jump through hoops? Isn't food a basic human right? Now, the food bank receives food for a variety of reasons. It could be that the product is near expiration. It could simply be a typo or a color that wasn't part of the marketing specifications. it could be a test product.

The Flaming Hot Mountain Dew, I'm sure, is a test product and this probably did not go well at some sort of supermarket. Have you tried the Flaming Hot Mountain Dew? No.

Patrick Childers (: 16:15

The majority of the food that comes to this food bank are local donations. And so that's from retail partners, supermarkets, manufacturers, wholesalers. One of the biggest misconceptions regarding a food bank versus a food pantry is that the food pantry basically distributes food directly to people in need. Whereas the food bank, we are kind of the aggregate of all the surplus food. We have the ability to source, distribute food in large quantities. Jason and Rina of Rural Relief Mobile Food Pantry

for example, which we're gonna meet here soon, only have enough room to store food for 20 or so families at a time. So the food bank acts as a hub. And what's interesting about the majority of these programs within our network is that they are managed by volunteers. But these volunteers have to be recognized by the IRS. They have to be a 501c3 or have to have a church qualifier form, which just is basically the government recognizing you as a church.

And you also have to be able to keep all the required paperwork and allow for proper food safety, which Raven kind of touched on. We get those guidelines from Feeding America. Now this is clearly Brooke's field of expertise, so let's get to know her a little bit more.

Patrick Childers (: 17:32

I also am one of four. I'm a triplet. And so when I was young, I was very fortunate and I feel like I really recognize that. And my parents were able to provide for us. And my dad is one of five and they struggled a bit growing up. And so my grandpa was one of the founders of the Alliance Food Pantry, which is now one of our biggest partners. And he kind of started it with a couple other guys from

the Kiwanis organization. So as a kid, I would volunteer there with him. And I just remember being impacted by the different people that would come in. My dad's side of the family really instilled in me just the fact that...

Not everybody gets the same opportunities, but we should be there to help provide whatever access we can to the people that don't necessarily have the same that we have. I actually knew probably halfway through college, I went to Kent that I wanted to be in nonprofit because I knew I wanted to help people. And so I thought that I was going to be a nurse because my mom's a nurse. And I quickly found out I did not like any sort of bodily fluid. So I changed gears and I was like, okay, well I can still help people in some way. did a temporary

term at United Way of Summit County. I also stalked the Foodbanks website for quite a while because I had volunteered here once in college and I really liked it. My fiance's mom volunteers up here now and then and she was like that's where you have to go. That's where you have to get in and get a job. So that's kind of my long-winded story as well. We love the long-winded story. It's an audio thing. We love the long-winded stories.

Patrick Childers (: 19:12

During our tour of the food bank, we see dozens of hardworking people filling every important role at the facility. One of these people is Bruce. Bruce is a volunteer. He's a retired gentleman who drives a truck for us. goes and picks up food almost every day for us. Hi Bruce, here's Bruce. Bruce, I was just telling these folks about you. How many days a week do you volunteer with us? Five. He's here five weeks a week. How long have you been pregnant?

And while they have a great team of volunteers and staff and spirits seem high, times are still rough. Receiving less donations from manufacturers and wholesalers, so we're spending more on food than we ever have before.

supply chain issues are decreasing donations to the food bank while we're paying 40 % more to purchase food to help fill the gaps. And because of inflation, know, the demand continues to rise because like all of us, families are paying more for groceries, they're paying more for gas. And so how do you manage a monthly budget? How do you juggle it all? How do you make it all work? You know, and so in our service area, food pantry visits are up 11 % over the last year. They're spending more on food than they ever have before.

But it's still hard to come by, so Raven assures us that usually you don't see these holes within the shelves.

Patrick Childers (: 20:48

So we're dealing with more people needing food now than ever, and there being less to go around. It's clear that post-pandemic we're still struggling, years later, to crawl out of its impact. This is not an isolated incident. Scarcity is commonplace across spectrums. I myself experienced this in 2020. I was quarantining in Ohio.

out of work and took advantage of one of the food banks many services. think it was the first Wednesday at our pop up pantry every month and I would drive up and they put food and you never knew what you're going to get but it kept us fed and just to know that so many people need that all the time is heartbreaking but to see the good work that you're all doing is wonderful and that the drive through has become so normal now.

since COVID and since this no touch distance thing? We will say, I mean, pre-COVID, there really was no food box program here. Client choice is really important, right? Based on your age, your likes, your religion, your culture, all of that. It's very important to give people the dignity and respect to shop the shelves like you and I do at a grocery store. And so many of our food programs

arc, a client choice pantry is what we call a choice pantry. And so COVID kind of eliminated that. So all of this food, you know, was going into a box. And like you said, you didn't have a choice, you didn't know what you were getting. And so there's good and bad to that. As there is for a lot of the new practices that we developed and honed as a society during COVID. Now, the ways that the food bank and the pantries who they work with adapted got a lot of media coverage. And that coverage turned out to not just be informative, but also inspiring.

Jason and Rena of Rural Relief actually saw on television some of the coverage of the work that the food bank was doing, and it motivated them to start their own organization.

Patrick Childers (: 22:54

Everybody always knew that there were hungry people in this community, but I think all of the news coverage that came from the pandemic has really shown people that so many of us are a paycheck or two away from needing to stand in a food line. Just because you have a job today doesn't mean you have a job tomorrow. It doesn't necessarily mean that you did something wrong or that you're different. know, it's just, especially the pandemic, it has shown us that hunger doesn't discriminate, you know? And at the end of the day, no one should go.

Not in this country, for sure. Not in the surplus food. I just can't help but wonder, do you think about, is it this economy that America functions on that causes this? Is it the consumerism-driven lifestyle? Is it just humans? Like, do you ponder these questions? You'll have to turn off your... You're on that now.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to dig deeper into these larger philosophical societal questions with Brooke and Raven on mic. But as you'll hear in our next episode, we do get a glimpse into Jason and Rena's feelings on the matter. mean, I think our systems really twisted. Yeah. To the point where there's only two classes. There's not so much a middle class anymore. It doesn't really feel like it. No. You know. No. I mean, there's those that get by.

There's those that get by barely. I guess the middle class might be those that get by, and those that get by barely. So, I ask you, the listener, after spending some time with folks helping relieve this issue, what do you think the core causes are behind this dire struggle? Our country, which has plenty of resources clearly and plenty of food, just can't seem to get this food to the hungry people that are everywhere.

Thankfully food banks and organizations like United Way exist, connecting the dots and working toward a common goal. On our next episode, we'll join Jason and Rina of Rural Relief Mobile Food Pantry to see what a day looks like on their level of relief. Boots on the ground, getting food directly to hungry people. Jason and Rina also share some more of their thoughts on the larger societal issues holding us back. All that and more, next time on United Relief.

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Thanks for joining us. United Relief is an odd conduit media production developed and produced by us, Ben and Patrick Childers. It's edited, mixed and mastered by Patrick, with fact-checking by Dash Lewis, story editing by Jenna Marson, and artwork by Migs Sunny. The series contains original music and sound design by LT Headtrip. This episode also has music performed by Pear and Flow. Special thanks to United Way Portage County in Ohio.

United Way is an international organization with 1,200 chapters in the U.S. alone. If you or someone you know are suffering from food insecurity and live in the U.S., we encourage you to dial 211 or visit 211.org and find out what services are available to you. They're here to help. You can also reach out to your local food bank. You'll find a list of food banks throughout the U.S. at feedingamerica.org. If you're eager to help, you can go to unitedway.org and find your local United Way. You can also discover volunteer opportunities through 211.

Get in touch with your local representatives to find out what they're doing to help relieve food insecurity in your area and how you can pitch in. Also, don't forget to meet your neighbors and ask what you can do in your immediate community. Find the links in our show notes. If you have an untold story about community impact and are looking for help telling it via podcasting, contact us at services at oddconduitmedia.com. And you can learn more about us on the web at oddconduitmedia.com.