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Community Initiatives
School Pantry
Beginning Wednesday, November 14th, schools in Cranfills Gap, Iredell, Meridian and Walnut Springs will host pantries of fresh produce and other groceries once a month for students and their families. The food will be distributed immediately after school on the second Wednesday of each month.
The mission of the School Pantry program is to help alleviate child hunger in America through the provision of food for children and their families at school. School Pantries are located on the grounds of a school intended to provide a more readily accessible source of food assistance to low-income students and their families.
Wesley Mobile Pantry
A new Mobile Pantry program has started on the north side of Fort Worth. The Wesley Mobile Pantry is located at the Wesley Community Center and distribution is the 4th Saturday of each month. Like a market on wheels, the Mobile Pantry program is a traveling pantry that delivers nutritious food, including fresh produce and refrigerated items, directly to communities with high need. So far for 2012, the 7 Mobile Pantries have distributed 1.17 million pounds of food to 108,500 individuals. |
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Agency Relations
Hunger in America Study
Every 4 years TAFB collaborates with Feeding America on a nationwide survey that evaluates hunger. The Hunger in America survey gathers data through all of the Feeding America partners to form a comprehensive picture of what hunger looks like in our communities. This fall and next spring we will again be collecting data for that survey.
The survey consists of information gathered from agencies and from clients. Each agency will be sent an email with a link to participate in the survey. Agencies will log on to the web address that is provided in the email and will respond to questions about their programs. Each agency should have received a message from Westat, the survey company. If you have not, please contact Lori Pope.
If you have questions about how to complete the survey or how to answer a specific question, please go to www.hungerinamerica2014.org for assistance. We are not allowed to answer questions about the survey for you as a matter of maintaining the integrity of the survey.
TAFB is asking that you complete this survey before you get busy with various holiday programs and activities. Please help compile this very important information so that we'll have real knowledge about the hunger issue in our communities.
In the spring, we will begin the client surveys. Westat will notify us about the selected locations where we will conduct live interviews with program clients. The surveys are totally random and we do not yet know where we will collect data. If your agency is selected, we will be present for the survey and let you know when it will take place.
Thank you for your assistance in this very important project. If you have any questions, please let me know at lori.pope@tafb.org
Required Trainings
Just a quick reminder that Civil Rights training is required and is due by December 1st. If you have not had the training this year, please make sure that someone at your agency gets trained. All agencies may use this link to complete the trainin online. Once you have completed the online training, please print your certificate and send a copy to Agency Relations.
We will also offer our final Civil Rights training for the year on Friday, November 30th at 11:00am at Field Street Baptist Church, 306 N. Field, Cleburne, 76033. Agencies that have not completed Civil Rights training will not have access to USDA food until they complete the training. Next year we will offer on site trainings only once a quarter.
Food safety training is also required by the end of the year. All agencies should use this link to our website where you will find information about training: http://www.tafb.org/nutrition-food-safety-training.html. Please print the certificate when you complete the training and send a copy in to the Food Bank. |
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Holiday Meals: Easy, Tasty, Fun
and Safe
With the holidays just around the corner, families everywhere are making plans to celebrate. Whether your agency is handing out turkeys and hams to help families with their own dinners or you're planning a Thanksgiving dinner to feed a few hundred, there's a lot to do to be ready.
Here are some resources to help the families your agency serves enjoy the holidays, have fun, make memories, and be sure that the food served is safe-from the first plate, to afternoon grazing, to a midnight snack.
- The Holiday Food Safety Kit is a great place to start. It's got everything thing you need to know about how to prepare a safe and delicious holiday meal, including recipes for the big day and what to do with leftovers. There are recipes and activities just for kids, too.
- Want to get through the holidays without adding to your waistline? Here are some Helpful Tips for Holiday Parties.
- Take care of yourself this holiday season with Holiday Health and Safety Tips.
- Engage the whole family, and make time for play with Thanksgiving Meal, Activity and Craft Ideas.
- Follow the 4 steps of Be Food Safe: Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill. Use this temperature chart to make sure you know the right cooking temperatures of your favorite foods.
- Prevent the biggest mistake that happens after the meal-leaving out the leftovers for too long. Leftovers should be refrigerated within 2 hours, and eaten, frozen, or thrown out in 3-4 days.
- Encourage families to get around the table not just for holidays, but every day, with recipes and tip sheets on Family Meals from our GoHealthy! Program (formerly Info to Go). You might be surprised at how meaningful some time together around a table can be.
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Food for Kids
Have you met Kate? She represents the 1 in 4 children who are food insecure in our area. Watch and share this video to encourage everyone to help us with the fight against hunger.
TAFB's BackPack for Kids Program is one of the best ways to help children like Kate and this program is ready to grow! We have a waiting list of more than 20 schools that are interested in partnering with us for the BackPack for Kids program. If your organization or employer is available to sponsor a school, please contact us! Support a school for just $1500 a month. This will provide 50 children with a sack of nutritious child friendly food to eat over the weekend.
Start Planning for Summer
During the school year, 2.8 million Texas students on the free or reduced lunch program often go without consistent meals on the weekends and holidays. The summer break is a particularly difficult time for such students. Although free meals are available to free or reduced eligible students in the summer, only a small fraction of eligible students participate in the summer meals feeding program, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture. This gap is often due to a lack of convenient locations or transportation. TAFB will work with churches, community organizations and apartment complexes to provide lunches and snacks in an organized group environment to children who are often on their own during the day. For information about how you can become a SFSP site with TAFB as your sponsor, please complete this form. |
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Volunteer/Staff Relations
Sometimes, relations between paid staff and volunteers can be difficult. Staff feels like volunteers are unreliable or trying to steal jobs, while volunteers feel under-appreciated and misinformed. The best way to build and maintain good relationships between these groups is to keep both parties informed and working toward a common, known goal.
Steve McCurley and Rick Lynch of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) have written a list of things NOT to do when trying to build healthy relationships between staff and volunteers. Here's a peek into what you should avoid when developing or mending these relationships.
- Don't involve staff in the decisions as to if and how to utilize volunteers within the agency. Everybody loves a surprise.
- Accept everyone who volunteers for a position, regardless of whether you think they are over-qualified or under-qualified. Quantity is everything.
- If you do insist on training volunteers, be sure not to include the staff with whom the volunteers will be working in the design of the training.
- Assume that your staff already knows everything they need about proper volunteer utilization. Why should they receive any better training than you did?
- Don't presume to recognize the contributions that volunteers make to the agency. After all, volunteers are simply too valuable for words.
- Try to suppress any problems that come to your attention. Listening only encourages complaints.
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Class 19's last day of curriculum is November 16. They will then begin Phase II - a two week unpaid internship in the 'real world'. A few of the internship sites include Brioche Bistro, Ashton Depot, Ashton Hotel, Black Rooster Bakery and Aventino's. Class 19's graduation celebration will be at 10 a.m. December 1 at the Tarrant Area Food Bank. Please join us as we celebrate Class 19's success!
Informational meetings and one-on-one interviews were held for Class 20. Sixteen very excited students were selected. Thank you to all of our Partner Agencies who make our class information available to their clients. The response from you has been so helpful. Class 20 will begin their culinary journey on December 3rd.
The next round of information sessions for Class 21 will be in February.
Production of the one-pound meals for our Partner Agencies continues to average between 10,000-12,000 per month. Achieving these stellar numbers would not be possible without the assistance of our amazing students and volunteers! These meals are available on the TAFB shopping list. |
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