First Friday Memo - June 2024

From the desk of Jayne Wright-Velez, Executive Director

June 2024 / Issue 172

June Marks the Start of Hurricane Season

Here in Louisiana, we’re no strangers to major storms and the winds and flooding they bring across the state. When they hit, the food bank responds with emergency food for people who are affected. We’ll send additional mobile food pantries to hard-hit areas, we’ll provide emergency food for families who lose power or can’t stay in their homes, and we’ll supply food for people from all over the state who evacuate to the Alexandria Medical Special Needs Mega Shelter and other shelters across our region. In short, hurricane season means we must be prepared to distribute more food to more places – on very short notice. The last two years, we were lucky, with no hurricanes making landfall on the Louisiana coast. This year, experts predict a busy season. And while we won’t know if, where, or when until we’re needed, rest assured we’re prepped and ready to respond.

Maximus Foundation Awards the Food Bank a $10,000 Grant

We’re excited to announce that the Maximus Foundation recently awarded the Food Bank of Central Louisiana with an unrestricted grant for our critical work providing nutritional support to people in our local communities. The Maximus Foundation is the employee-led charitable organization of Maximus, a leading operator of essential government health and human services programs throughout the nation and around the globe. As a recipient of the award, the Maximus Foundation recognizes our mission and ability to deliver transformative impact to our community. We are so grateful for their support.

Thanks to All who Participated in the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive

The National Association of Letter Carriers held its annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive all across the nation. Thank you to everyone who left a bag of food out to be collected by your letter carrier on May 11. Locally, the drive provided 20,109 of food donated to the Food Bank of Central Louisiana. We are so grateful for our continued partnership with the Alexandria/Pineville/Marksville 932 National Association of Letter Carriers.

Morgan Stanley Feeds Cenla Families

The Food Bank of Central Louisiana has been selected to receive a 2024 Child and Family Feeding grant, thanks to the Morgan Stanley Foundation. The goal of this grant is to support the start-up, sustainment, or expansion of Child and Family Feeding programs or efforts serving communities of color and/or rural communities. Nationally, the Morgan Stanley Foundation has partnered with Feeding America to provide more than $50 million in support of hunger-relief programs that deliver food assistance and healthy meals to children and families across the country.

No Kid Hungry Supports Summer Meals for Children and Teens

Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign has awarded a grant of $10,000 to The Food Bank of Central Louisiana. The No Kid Hungry Community Nutrition Grant provides funding to community organizations and government entities to maximize the child nutrition programs to ensure children and families have access to healthy meals at school and at home during the school year and/or summer months. The purpose of this grant is to support the food bank’s critical work to alleviate childhood hunger by providing non-congregate meals to children and teens through the Summer Food Service Program.

More People Are Experiencing Food Insecurity

Food insecurity in the United States has reached its highest point in years, according to Feeding America’s annual Map the Meal Gap study, released last month. Food insecurity impacts communities in every county, parish and congressional district in the U.S., where nationally 13.5% of people don’t have enough to eat. Here are a couple of local findings from the study:

• In Louisiana, the state food insecurity rate is well above the national average, at 16.9% statewide; while in the Central Louisiana region served by our food bank, 17.7% of residents – more than 67,000 individuals – live in food insecurity.

• The national food budget shortfall, which reflects the extra money that people who are food insecure report needing to cover their food needs, has hit a record high of $33.1 billion, up nearly 43% from the previous year. Residents of Central Louisiana feel this first-hand, with an estimated household food budget shortfall of $22.11 every week.

To dive deeper into the data, explore Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap online at: https://map.feedingamerica.org.

North Alexandria Community Garden Annual Potato Dig

A big thanks to all the volunteers and neighbors who helped make this year’s North Alexandria Community Garden potato dig a great success. Our Good Food Project, along with our AmeriCorps team, joined neighborhood friends on May 16 to harvest the potato crop for the community. The event coincided with the annual neighborhood fish fry, where folks joined the gardeners for a tasty lunch. A total of 250 pounds of potatoes were harvested during the dig.