Upcoming Events
1/9/08
Whole Foods Market, 399 Post Road West, Westport, is
hosting "5% Day" to benefit Connecticut Food Bank. 5% of the day's net sales will be donated to CFB.
Until 1/31/08
Check Out Hunger at A&P Supermarkets throughout
Connecticut. At the check-out line, grab a coupon and have $1, $3 or $5 added to your grocery bill. All proceeds benefit CFB.
2/13/08
Y 2nd Annual Y
Sort & Mingle for Singles
You'll join other single people for this volunteer Valentine event to help sort
non-perishable food for distribution and enjoy refreshments provided by Terri Corning for The Pampered Chef.
Wed., February 13 from 5-8PM at CFB, 150 Bradley Street, East Haven.
For details and to RSVP, contact Kim Damien at (203) 469-5000, ext. 311 or
kdamien@
ctfoodbank.org.
Save These Dates
The 3rd annual Walk Against Hunger in Waterbury will be Sunday, April
27.
The 32nd annual Walk Against Hunger in New Haven will be Sunday, May 4.
Stay tuned to future e-newsletters for more information.
Special Thanks
That House in Milford used publicity about its Christmas light
display to draw attention to hunger.
Owner Chris Donnells ran a virtual food drive for Connecticut Food Bank during the
2007 holiday season.
His light display drew attention from local media, leading many to go to thathouseinmilford.com to donate funds to the online food drive.
Donnells surpassed his $2,000 goal with days to spare, raising $2,600.07 by
January 1 for CFB.
Happy New Year!
Would you like to join us in helping make
the new year bright for people in need?
Contact Kim Damien at (203) 469-5000, ext. 311, if you would like to volunteer
with CFB.
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CFB Happenings
Since September, Connecticut Food Bank has served as a field site
for the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship, a project of the Congressional Hunger Center. Fatima Carson (right
at Food for Friends food drive) and JoEllen Pederson (below left at Fill the Bowl food drive) have been serving
in our Programs Department, providing in-depth analysis to help CFB find innovative ways to serve the community. On December 17, Fatima
and JoEllen presented their early reports to CFB staff on the studies they have been conducting.
Fatima's task has been to help implement the computer program, Agency
Express, which will change how member programs shop for food at our warehouses. Until now, programs would send people to CFB to place, pick
out, and package their orders. With Agency Express, the order will be fulfilled online and packaged in the warehouse for pick-up.
This will cut down the transit time for all parties.
Agency Express is being tested with our programs in the northeast
first, though the intention is to roll it out throughout the state. At the presentation, Fatima took CFB staff step-by-step through
the new process and will spend time until February, when her field assignment ends, training member programs in the use of this
software.
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JoEllen has been working on a gap study to determine how sufficiently our resources are
going to areas with the highest need. She worked with GIS mapping as well as CFB program files and agency
records to illustrate our system as it currently stands.
In her presentation, JoEllen highlighted emergency and non-emergency programs separately
and further divided them into subsets based on how they receive funding, refrigerator and freezer capacity, and the type of transportation used for
picking up food from our warehouses. She also discovered that places with high levels of poverty did not always feature the most or
best-equipped pantries.
CFB will be able to use JoEllen's gap study to encourage the growth of programs or
agencies in underserved areas, so that we can continue to help communities serve the people who need it most.
To learn more about the Bill Emerson Fellowships, visit The Congressional Hunger Center.
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Hunger in the News
2007 Farm Bill Moves to Conference Committee: For the past few months, CFB has been
tracking the progress of the Farm Bill as it moved through the House and Senate. On December 14, after much debate and tense moments where it
seemed as though there might not be a Farm Bill in this session, the Senate passed its version of the Farm Bill by a 79-14 vote. With
passage, the bill now goes before a House-Senate conference committee so that the Senate's version can be reconciled with a House version passed last
July. Thank you to everyone who made calls to our legislators on behalf of this bill.
While decisions about the
contents of the final Farm Bill are being determined, we are encouraged by the Senate approval of $250 million in mandatory funding for The Emergency
Food Assistance Program (TEFAP)food purchases, which has been a priority for food banks nationwide. The Senate bill also benefits hunger
relief efforts with new investments in the Food Stamp Program. Other highlights of the Senate bill include lifting the child care deduction cap,
raising and indexing household asset limits for food stamps, and reauthorizing government commodities purchases.
Deliberations on a final bill are slated
to start early this year. These pages will keep you updated on the Farm Bill's progress. You can receive in depth updates via The Hunger Action Center.
FY2008 Appropriations Bill: The president has signed an omnibus appropriations bill that
includes funding for federal nutrition programs. TEFAP food purchases will be funded at $140 million (full funding), the Commodity Supplemental
Nutrition Program will be funded at a level expected to meet current participation ($140 million) and the Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants
and Children (WIC) received an increase over last year's funding. TEFAP storage and distribution grants were funded at $50
million, and the Fellowships from the Congressional Hunger Center were renewed.
Differences in These
Bills: In basic terms, the Farm Bill serves as an overall budget, while Appropriations equate to the checks you write while
working within the budget. Therefore, the Farm Bill will set funding levels for a number of federal nutrition programs over the next
five years, while the annual appropriations process provides the actual dollars for all federal nutrition programs, including TEFAP, CSFP, the
National School Lunch Program and the Summer Food Service Program.
Source: Eleanor Thompson (America's
Second Harvest - The Nation's Food Bank Network)
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Success Story
Company Donations Highlight Transition to 2008: It has been a
happy new year at Connecticut Food Bank. As 2007 came to a close, CFB was the recipient of several donations from the business
community. On December 6, Ocean State Job Lot delivered more than 30,000 pounds of food to our East Haven
warehouse. They had matched more than $11,000 of customer donations from 13 local stores for our benefit. This provided yams, canned
salmon, pasta, sauce, flour, cereal, rice and cranberry juice. Only three weeks later, they sent another shipment to us. This delivery
included canned vegetables, cereal, rice, pasta, and canned salmon and chicken. In all, Ocean State Job Lot donated approximately 60,000 pounds
of food to CFB in December.
The Credit Union League of Connecticut sent their yearly donation to
CFB. Each year, the Credit Union League conducts a statewide raffle to raise funds for hunger relief organizations in Connecticut. They
also held a 50-50 raffle for CFB at their New Haven Chapter brunch in early December. The funds generated through these efforts purchased
33,774 pounds of canned fruit and vegetables, soup, ham, roast beef, chicken, turkey, and fresh fruit, which they delivered to us on December
20.
With the turn of the calendar has come word of another donation. Working with America's
Second Harvest - the Nation's Food Bank Network, Wal-Mart will be sending a shipment of donated food in early January.
These generous shipments will help CFB serve the community during the cold winter
months.
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Get Interactive
Your Brainpower + FreeRice.com = Food for People In
Need: This month's Internet feature allows you to test your vocabulary and help out hungry people worldwide. Go to
FreeRice.com to put your
knowledge to the test. For every word you match with a correct definition, FreeRice will donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations
World Food Program. Using unobtrusive ads at the bottom of the screen as you play the game, FreeRice generates the money needed in order to
purchase the rice. The game is fun for all ages and shows that a little knowledge can go a long way!
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