October 24, 2025 • 19 mins
We spoke with Jason Jakubowski, President & CEO of Connecticut Foodshare about how to give help and get help during the government shutdown and Holiday season. We also spoke about the upcoming iHeart Stuff-A-Bus event benefiting Connecticut Foodshare.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
Alison de Murz. My guest this morning is Jason jack Ubowskian.
He is president and chief executive officer of food Share.
Good morning, Allison.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
How are you good to be here in the studio
with you.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm so happy that you're here. You're one of those
gems that people just adore in the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
He you tell my kids that why don't you tell
my kidd I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna tell me.
Alison said that I'm a gem.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
It's so true though, they're the rods. So for people
who don't know about food Share, who is food Share?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, Connecticut food Schair. We've been around for about forty
almost forty five years now. We are the food bank
serving the entire state of Connecticut. We serve all one
hundred and sixty nine pounds. There's about five hundred and
fifteen thousand people in Connecticut who are food and secure
right now. And what we do is we collect food,
and we buy food and we distribute it to six
(00:51):
hundred local pantries all across the state of Connecticut. And
you know, people often will ask us, oh you must
do a lot in Hartford and New Haven and Ridgeport. Yeah,
obviously we do a lot of work in the cities,
but there's need in the suburban area, affluent suburbs Avon, Simsbury, Dairyen, Greenwich,
(01:11):
and then also the small rural towns here in Connecticut,
like you know Sherman and Vallentown and Sterling and Cornwall.
I mean, you know, in those cases there's people that
maybe you know, forty five minutes or an hour away
from a grocery store. So our job is to collect
food and to distribute food to those six hundred pantries
and to one hundred and ten different mobile truck sites
(01:32):
across the state of Connecticut and help people out. We
distribute about forty five million meals a year to people
here in the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And how are you able to collect that food and
distribute that food?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, most of it comes from about seventy percent of
the food comes from the Connecticut grocery industry. The Connecticut
Food Association is a great partner of ours. Stop and
Shop is our number one donor, but from grocery stores,
from food distributors, manufacturers, wholesalers, and it really makes it.
It makes a difference because we're able to keep our
(02:05):
costs low because so much of the food gets donated.
The other thirty percent, most of it comes from the
federal government through the Emergency Food Assistance program, some comes
from the state government, and then obviously, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
People will collect food and bring it to us. That's
a small portion, but most of the food that we
get comes from the grocery industry. We do buy some
of our food as well, and you know that's been
that's gotten more difficult as time has gone on because
obviously the cost of groceries has gone up. I mean,
if it cost you more at the grocery store, it's
costing us more in terms of buying it a wholesale.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
But you know, it's it's really a mix. But most
of our food comes from the grocery industry and we're
so thankful to them. We couldn't do what we do
without them.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And it's the freshest, most delicious food ever.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
We try, I mean, we definitely try. You know, we
have we have volunteers. I know you know this, so
we have a great team of volunteers. We have fifty
seven hundred volunteers a year at Connecticut Food Share, and
you know, part of what they do is they take
the food that's been donated to us and they sort
through it to make sure that only the best is
getting out on our trucks and is going out to
our to our neighbors in need through our six hundred pantries.
(03:16):
You know, our rule of thumb is this just just
because you're in need, and just because you need food
doesn't mean you don't have dignity. And you know, we
we have an obligation to treat everybody with dignity and
with respect. If it's not something I would feed my
own kids, I'm not going to put it out one
of our trucks. Absolutely not. So we're very lucky that
we have a great group of volunteers that help us
(03:37):
go out there and sort the food and get it
ready for people.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
It's wonderful. You mentioned food and security in Connecticut. Let's
talk about the stats.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
It's about one in every seven people in Connecticut. It's
about one in every six children. And that's that's crazy
when you think about it, because you know, here we are,
we're in the state of Connecticut, where the richest state
in the country in the year twenty twenty five and
to think that anybody is food and secure is hard
to believe. But there are absolutely pockets of poverty all
(04:08):
across the state of Connecticut. I mean, we're sitting here
in your studio in Hertford right now. Look at the
city of Hartford. There are multi million dollar mansions here
in the city of Hartford. There are also some of
the poorest zip codes in the entire United States, all
within this one little tiny municipality. So that's the reality
here in Connecticut. People often say to me, well, you know,
probably not Greenwich. You know, Greenwich, We absolutely a neighbor
(04:31):
to neighbor food pantry down in Greenwich serves a thousand
families every single month. Now, that's the richest town and
the richest state and the richest country in the world.
So it just shows you that even though there's affluence,
there is still there are still families that struggle with poverty.
The other thing that we've seen, Allison, is that it's
not necessarily people who are unemployed. Unemployment is relatively low
(04:52):
right now. It's people who are working and they're just
having a hard time making ends meet. Some people working
more than one job and having a hard time making
ends meet. I know you see this every day with
with a lot of the different charities that you work with.
That's the difficult thing. If you go to one of
our lines. The two things you're hearing the most from
people in Connecticut right now are the high cost of
(05:13):
groceries and the affordability and availability of housing. Those are
the two things that are driving this economy. And people
may be working, but they don't know if you know,
they can afford maybe they can afford their rent, but
they don't know where the next meal is coming from.
That's not a choice we ever want anybody to have
to make here in the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And unfortunately, some people are choosing between medication or food
or feeding their cap.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's exactly what happens is people sit there. You have
a finite it especially senior citizens who are on fixed incomes,
they have a finite amount of income every single month,
and the question that they have is what are you
going to do? Are you gonna pay your rent? Are
you going to pay electricity? Are you going to pay
for heat? Are you going to pay for medication? Or
are you going to pay for food? And most of
the time they say, well, I can't go without heat
(05:57):
or electricity or medication. But I could skip a meal
every you know, and then and that's just not something
that we want people to have to That's not a
choice we want people to have to make.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And for someone who's pride may g it in the
way where they don't want to take advantage of your services,
what would you say to them.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
There is no shame in needing our services. We've had
people come up to us and say to us, you know, hey,
I used to donate to you guys for years, and
now I'm sorry that I have to use your services.
That's what we're here for. I mean, look, the world's
not perfect. We all have tough times everybody. I don't
think I've ever met anybody that hasn't fallen on tough
times before. Could be your neighbor, could be your friend,
(06:31):
it could be a sibling. You know, you do never
know what's happening in people's lives. You never know if
they got a new medical bill that they can't pay.
You never know if they got laid off or furload
from their job. And those are the types of things
that just creep up on you. It's usually nobody's fall
but it's just the situation that you're in. So I
always tell people there is no shame in coming to
(06:54):
us and using us for help. We're here to help
people in times of trouble. We're here to help them,
you know, get back on their feet. We are not
a permanent solution. There is no way anybody could, you know,
eat off of what we're able to provide for the
rest of their life. But when you're in need and
your back's up against the wall, there's no shame in
coming to see us.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
How are you responding to the government shutdown?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, that's that's that's definitely that's thrown us for a loop.
Anytime there's a curveball like that in terms of what
we do, it's it's it's difficult. Here in Connecticut. There's
really like three different reactions that we worry about. One
is the psychological impact on people. People know there's a shutdown,
so they're gonna want to stock up on food. The
second is the impact on federal employees here in the
(07:39):
state of Connecticut, And the third is what happens if
snap benefits go away on November first, to say, for
federal employees, you know, we already started last week, we
did what we call an emergency distribution for the TSA
workers up at Bradley Airport, and then we also provided
food to the TSA workers down at Tweed New Haven Airport. Now,
(08:00):
these are people who are going to work every single
day because they have to, because it's their job. But
they're not getting paid right and it's terrible, you know,
and they've already started to miss paychecks. And we did
the same thing back at during the shutdown in twenty nineteen.
Is you know, we're just an opportunity to you know,
like the question you asked before about dignity and stigma,
(08:22):
it's not their fault that they're not getting a paycheck.
It's not and so we're trying to do what we
can to help them be able to make ends meet
for their families. So we're bringing some food up there.
Our Board of Directors authorized a million dollars in emergency
spending earlier this month. That'll get us through about thirty
days of increased need at our six hundred pantries. But
(08:43):
I can tell you we're already seeing the lines get longer.
We're already seeing the number of people that need our
services increase. I wish I could say I wasn't worried,
but you know, this is one of those things. The
longer continues, the harder it's going to be for working families,
and the harder it's going to be for us. So
we're really hopeful that, you know, donors will step up
(09:05):
like they did during COVID and help us because we're
in a position where we're going to be buying more
food than what we usually do. So I hope there's
a quick solution. I know we all do, but I
think we've got to prepare for the long haul.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
So you have a double whammy because you have the
holidays care.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, the timing wasn't great on yes, I mean the
timing is never great on a government shutdown, but right
on the heels of the holidays, it's tough. I mean,
the holidays are one of our busiest times of the year,
and in November in particular, you know, there's about five
weeks or so until Thanksgiving, and what we try to
do is we try to do a turkey distribution every
year because there's so many families that just don't have
(09:44):
access to a turkey. So our goal this year is
I think we're going to try to collect and distribute
thirty eight thousand Thanksgiving meals to people across the state
of Connecticut. You know, budgets are tight, times are tight.
It's not as many as we've done in the past,
but it's still it's going to help. It's there to help.
I mean, it's there to help people. You have a
good Thanksgiving. You know, you guys are great here at heart.
(10:06):
I heart stuff. A bus coming up. We're very excited
going to be in Hamden on November twenty first and
twenty second, like we are every single year collecting turkeys
outside outside of the stop and shop there usually get
a couple thousand plus some some monetary donations to help
us go out and buy turkeys. So so yeah, I
mean the shutdown on top of Thanksgiving and on top
(10:29):
of the holidays, it's certainly not ideal, but we do
want to you know, it's a special time. We want
people to try to be able to have a good
a good holiday with their with their families. So thirty
eight thousand Thanksgiving meals, that's going to be our goal
this year, and again we're hopeful that our donors will
step up to the plate and and help us meet
that goal and when.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
People go to stop and shop that day, yep. Do
you just go in when you go shopping, you just
come out, you put the turkey.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
It's so easy, take care of everything else, and.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
You feel so good and you know you've blessed family.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Absolutely, It's just it's it's wonderful. It's one of my
favorite favorite days of the of of the year. The
whole iHeart family is out there. It's it's it's it's
great and you know, it's something you guys have been
doing for us for for more more than twenty years,
and we really, we really appreciate it. It's also an
opportunity for people to, like you said, give back to
(11:21):
their to their community. There's a lot of people in
Connecticut that don't have the means to be able to help,
but there's also a lot of people that do. And
I think that's what we see often during the during
the holidays, is people who who are in a good
place coming up and saying, hey, look, you know I've
got the ability to buy you know, I'm buying a
turkey for myself. I'm going to buy two more turkeys
(11:43):
and I'm gonna donate them. And that we really appreciate
and you know, also we're we're virtual it's it's it's
it's twenty twenty five. If you don't want to go
lug one of those big frozen turkeys around, you can
go to our our our website ctfoodshare dot org and
you can donate a virtual turkey if you if you want,
you can give us the money. We'll go out and
buy the turkey for you. So we're very very high
(12:05):
tech at Connecticut Food Share.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So they can donate money, yep, they can donate their time,
they volunteer, they can also donate food yep. And are
there other ways that people can get I.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Mean, I think you hit thee the three main things.
For every dollar that gets donated to us at Connecticut
Food Share, we can turn it into two meals for
people across the state of Connecticut. Because we have so
many volunteers and because so much of our food is donated,
we're we're a very efficient operation. So you donate a
dollar at Connecticut Food Share, we can buy two meals
(12:36):
with that. What I always tell people too, is you know,
if you took a dollar and went to the store,
you could buy a can of soup. If you gave
us a dollar, we could buy twenty cans of soup
because we're buying it by the truckload. So it's always
a good thing to be able to give money to
your local food bank. If you want to collect cans
of food, that's great. You can go to your local
food pantry and go on our website and we can
(12:58):
tell you where to drop that off. And time is
important too, Like you said, I mean volunteers. We have
fifty seven hundred volunteers. It's the equivalent of twenty three
full time staff members. We simply could not do what
we'd do if it wasn't for those volunteers. So people
can any type of any type of giving that people
can can engage in is really appreciated. We're a nonprofit.
(13:23):
What people forget sometimes they often ask us about food,
and they often say they want to buy food. The
food is an important piece of it, but it's only
half of it. Half of the equation. The other half
is storing the food and distributing the food. I mean,
you know, it's so we have to pay for things
like trucks and truck drivers and diesel fuel and electricity
because we have you know, coolers and freezers and other
(13:45):
things like that at our facility. So it's about getting
the food, but it's also about how do we get
the food to the people in need.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
To see those trucks pull out, I just like it
all choked up. Yeah, it was just a beautiful site
and I thought, thank you God, you know, for doing this.
We do without Connecticut Food Shore.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Our issue in this country isn't that we don't have
enough food. We have enough food in this country. It's
how do we get the food to the people in need?
And you know, that's that's really what we're what we're
what we're all about. Like you said, you see the
trucks out on the street, you see the mobile trucks
out in the community. We have one hundred and ten
of those mobile truck sites that go out the mobile pantry.
(14:27):
You know, it warms my heart. And I do this
every day for a living, and it's still it's still
warms my heart. During emergencies. We saw that with the
floods in Oxford last year. We had some emergency distributions.
As you know, during COVID we were out there at
renschlar Field distributing food. So we're here for it's what
we do. That's why we do what we do every day.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
And I don't mean to get so deep or so depressing,
but being hungry is a horrible feeling. And then then
to see you when your child is hungry and there's
nothing that you can, well, that's the worst.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
That's the worst. And and you know, every study I'm
not a scientist, but I mean studies have certainly shown
that you know, when kids don't eat, they don't learn, right,
That's that's a proven fact. And if kids aren't eating
at school, or they're not eating before school, it's very
hard for them to learn and to retain information. So
to me, that's like the worst thing any society could
(15:22):
do is let its kids go hungry. And one of
the things I love about being here in Connecticut is
the people of Connecticut always step up to the plate.
They did during COVID, they do during the government shutdowns,
they do it Thanksgiving time. Nobody here in Connecticut wants
to see kids go hungry. And you know, that's why
we do what we do every single day. That's why
(15:43):
we collect dollars, and that's why people are so generous
here in Connecticut because they know that you don't want
anybody going hungry. You certainly don't want kids going hungry.
It's awful.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
What kind of positive responses or feedback have you gone
from people over the years.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, that those are always those are always great. I
remember when we were doing the distributions during COVID at
regular Field, people would bring cards and they would they
would write, make letters and stuff. We'll often get those.
The to me, the the most heartfelt ones are the
ones from people who will say, Hey, I used to
volunteer with you, guys, or I used to donate to
(16:21):
you guys. I never in a million years thought that
I would need your services, but I fell upon hard
times and you helped me get through it, and I
got through it. I mean, those are those are the best. Uh,
Those are the best cards and letters and things that
we get. But the work itself is not easy because
you're dealing with a you know, sometimes quite frankly, a
(16:43):
depressing subject matter. But when you see the thankfulness of people,
and when you see that people are realizing that because
of the work that we're doing and because of the
donations that we get, somebody's actually getting a meal tonight,
I mean that that warms your heart every single time,
and people are so grateful out there, and it just
it just means the world to us. You know, people
(17:04):
say to us all the time, Oh, you're doing God's work.
You're doing God's work. You're doing God's work, and you
start to take that to heart and realize that, you know,
this is an issue that has been going on for
literally thousands of years. I'd love to be able to
say we're going to put ourselves out of business. I'd
love to be able to say that we're going to
solve hunger. But again, you go back to the Old Testament,
(17:27):
and there's food insecurity, there's hunger. I don't think we're
going to solve it, but we certainly can make life
better and easier for the five hundred and fifteen thousand
people that we're serving here in the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Well, you are so thank you put your head on
that pillow at night, knowing you're doing the best you can.
You ever have a story about the starfish, Go ahead,
go for it, all right. There's a million starfish on
the beach and this little girl's running around throwing one
at a time into the and this guy comes up
and he goes, you're never going to be able, it
doesn't matter. And she said, well it that one does
to that one, and that one that you do the
(18:03):
best you can with what you have.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Absolutely, And I think that's one of the type, that's
one of the mentalities that we carry with us every day.
We know we're not solving this major, major problem that's
plagued this world for thousands of years. But if we
could help a family today, and we could help families tomorrow, again,
knowing we did forty five million meals last year, I mean,
that's a big deal. That is that really is. And
(18:28):
sometimes because we're in the thick of it, we have
to take a step back and say to ourselves, yeah,
that really was a big deal. Absolutely, but but but
it is. And look, people think about us during the holidays.
We appreciate that. By the way, we raise a lot
of money during the holidays. But it's three hundred and
sixty five days a year. I mean, it's not I
always say, once the calendar turns to January doesn't mean that,
(18:50):
you know, all of a sudden, hunger's gone away. It's
with us year round, and it's different people all the time,
and whatever we can do to help try to make
their lives a little bit better. That's what we're here for.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I'm speaking with Jason Jakobowski. He is president and chief
executive officer over at Connecticut Food Chare. Again, if you'd
like to volunteer make a donation, you can go to
ctfoodshare dot org. The Thanksgiving stuff a bus is November
twenty first and twenty second in Hamden. For any other details,
again go to ctfoodshare dot org. Thank you so much
(19:25):
for being here today and for taking care of people
the way that you do.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Thanks Allison, always great being here and always great talking
with you.
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
Alison de Murz. My guest this morning is Jason jack Ubowskian.
He is president and chief executive officer of food Share.
Good morning, Allison.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
How are you good to be here in the studio
with you.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm so happy that you're here. You're one of those
gems that people just adore in the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
He you tell my kids that why don't you tell
my kidd I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna tell me.
Alison said that I'm a gem.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
It's so true though, they're the rods. So for people
who don't know about food Share, who is food Share?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, Connecticut food Schair. We've been around for about forty
almost forty five years now. We are the food bank
serving the entire state of Connecticut. We serve all one
hundred and sixty nine pounds. There's about five hundred and
fifteen thousand people in Connecticut who are food and secure
right now. And what we do is we collect food,
and we buy food and we distribute it to six
(00:51):
hundred local pantries all across the state of Connecticut. And
you know, people often will ask us, oh you must
do a lot in Hartford and New Haven and Ridgeport. Yeah,
obviously we do a lot of work in the cities,
but there's need in the suburban area, affluent suburbs Avon, Simsbury, Dairyen, Greenwich,
(01:11):
and then also the small rural towns here in Connecticut,
like you know Sherman and Vallentown and Sterling and Cornwall.
I mean, you know, in those cases there's people that
maybe you know, forty five minutes or an hour away
from a grocery store. So our job is to collect
food and to distribute food to those six hundred pantries
and to one hundred and ten different mobile truck sites
(01:32):
across the state of Connecticut and help people out. We
distribute about forty five million meals a year to people
here in the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And how are you able to collect that food and
distribute that food?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, most of it comes from about seventy percent of
the food comes from the Connecticut grocery industry. The Connecticut
Food Association is a great partner of ours. Stop and
Shop is our number one donor, but from grocery stores,
from food distributors, manufacturers, wholesalers, and it really makes it.
It makes a difference because we're able to keep our
(02:05):
costs low because so much of the food gets donated.
The other thirty percent, most of it comes from the
federal government through the Emergency Food Assistance program, some comes
from the state government, and then obviously, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
People will collect food and bring it to us. That's
a small portion, but most of the food that we
get comes from the grocery industry. We do buy some
of our food as well, and you know that's been
that's gotten more difficult as time has gone on because
obviously the cost of groceries has gone up. I mean,
if it cost you more at the grocery store, it's
costing us more in terms of buying it a wholesale.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
But you know, it's it's really a mix. But most
of our food comes from the grocery industry and we're
so thankful to them. We couldn't do what we do
without them.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And it's the freshest, most delicious food ever.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
We try, I mean, we definitely try. You know, we
have we have volunteers. I know you know this, so
we have a great team of volunteers. We have fifty
seven hundred volunteers a year at Connecticut Food Share, and
you know, part of what they do is they take
the food that's been donated to us and they sort
through it to make sure that only the best is
getting out on our trucks and is going out to
our to our neighbors in need through our six hundred pantries.
(03:16):
You know, our rule of thumb is this just just
because you're in need, and just because you need food
doesn't mean you don't have dignity. And you know, we
we have an obligation to treat everybody with dignity and
with respect. If it's not something I would feed my
own kids, I'm not going to put it out one
of our trucks. Absolutely not. So we're very lucky that
we have a great group of volunteers that help us
(03:37):
go out there and sort the food and get it
ready for people.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
It's wonderful. You mentioned food and security in Connecticut. Let's
talk about the stats.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
It's about one in every seven people in Connecticut. It's
about one in every six children. And that's that's crazy
when you think about it, because you know, here we are,
we're in the state of Connecticut, where the richest state
in the country in the year twenty twenty five and
to think that anybody is food and secure is hard
to believe. But there are absolutely pockets of poverty all
(04:08):
across the state of Connecticut. I mean, we're sitting here
in your studio in Hertford right now. Look at the
city of Hartford. There are multi million dollar mansions here
in the city of Hartford. There are also some of
the poorest zip codes in the entire United States, all
within this one little tiny municipality. So that's the reality
here in Connecticut. People often say to me, well, you know,
probably not Greenwich. You know, Greenwich, We absolutely a neighbor
(04:31):
to neighbor food pantry down in Greenwich serves a thousand
families every single month. Now, that's the richest town and
the richest state and the richest country in the world.
So it just shows you that even though there's affluence,
there is still there are still families that struggle with poverty.
The other thing that we've seen, Allison, is that it's
not necessarily people who are unemployed. Unemployment is relatively low
(04:52):
right now. It's people who are working and they're just
having a hard time making ends meet. Some people working
more than one job and having a hard time making
ends meet. I know you see this every day with
with a lot of the different charities that you work with.
That's the difficult thing. If you go to one of
our lines. The two things you're hearing the most from
people in Connecticut right now are the high cost of
(05:13):
groceries and the affordability and availability of housing. Those are
the two things that are driving this economy. And people
may be working, but they don't know if you know,
they can afford maybe they can afford their rent, but
they don't know where the next meal is coming from.
That's not a choice we ever want anybody to have
to make here in the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And unfortunately, some people are choosing between medication or food
or feeding their cap.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's exactly what happens is people sit there. You have
a finite it especially senior citizens who are on fixed incomes,
they have a finite amount of income every single month,
and the question that they have is what are you
going to do? Are you gonna pay your rent? Are
you going to pay electricity? Are you going to pay
for heat? Are you going to pay for medication? Or
are you going to pay for food? And most of
the time they say, well, I can't go without heat
(05:57):
or electricity or medication. But I could skip a meal
every you know, and then and that's just not something
that we want people to have to That's not a
choice we want people to have to make.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And for someone who's pride may g it in the
way where they don't want to take advantage of your services,
what would you say to them.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
There is no shame in needing our services. We've had
people come up to us and say to us, you know, hey,
I used to donate to you guys for years, and
now I'm sorry that I have to use your services.
That's what we're here for. I mean, look, the world's
not perfect. We all have tough times everybody. I don't
think I've ever met anybody that hasn't fallen on tough
times before. Could be your neighbor, could be your friend,
(06:31):
it could be a sibling. You know, you do never
know what's happening in people's lives. You never know if
they got a new medical bill that they can't pay.
You never know if they got laid off or furload
from their job. And those are the types of things
that just creep up on you. It's usually nobody's fall
but it's just the situation that you're in. So I
always tell people there is no shame in coming to
(06:54):
us and using us for help. We're here to help
people in times of trouble. We're here to help them,
you know, get back on their feet. We are not
a permanent solution. There is no way anybody could, you know,
eat off of what we're able to provide for the
rest of their life. But when you're in need and
your back's up against the wall, there's no shame in
coming to see us.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
How are you responding to the government shutdown?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, that's that's that's definitely that's thrown us for a loop.
Anytime there's a curveball like that in terms of what
we do, it's it's it's difficult. Here in Connecticut. There's
really like three different reactions that we worry about. One
is the psychological impact on people. People know there's a shutdown,
so they're gonna want to stock up on food. The
second is the impact on federal employees here in the
(07:39):
state of Connecticut, And the third is what happens if
snap benefits go away on November first, to say, for
federal employees, you know, we already started last week, we
did what we call an emergency distribution for the TSA
workers up at Bradley Airport, and then we also provided
food to the TSA workers down at Tweed New Haven Airport. Now,
(08:00):
these are people who are going to work every single
day because they have to, because it's their job. But
they're not getting paid right and it's terrible, you know,
and they've already started to miss paychecks. And we did
the same thing back at during the shutdown in twenty nineteen.
Is you know, we're just an opportunity to you know,
like the question you asked before about dignity and stigma,
(08:22):
it's not their fault that they're not getting a paycheck.
It's not and so we're trying to do what we
can to help them be able to make ends meet
for their families. So we're bringing some food up there.
Our Board of Directors authorized a million dollars in emergency
spending earlier this month. That'll get us through about thirty
days of increased need at our six hundred pantries. But
(08:43):
I can tell you we're already seeing the lines get longer.
We're already seeing the number of people that need our
services increase. I wish I could say I wasn't worried,
but you know, this is one of those things. The
longer continues, the harder it's going to be for working families,
and the harder it's going to be for us. So
we're really hopeful that, you know, donors will step up
(09:05):
like they did during COVID and help us because we're
in a position where we're going to be buying more
food than what we usually do. So I hope there's
a quick solution. I know we all do, but I
think we've got to prepare for the long haul.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
So you have a double whammy because you have the
holidays care.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, the timing wasn't great on yes, I mean the
timing is never great on a government shutdown, but right
on the heels of the holidays, it's tough. I mean,
the holidays are one of our busiest times of the year,
and in November in particular, you know, there's about five
weeks or so until Thanksgiving, and what we try to
do is we try to do a turkey distribution every
year because there's so many families that just don't have
(09:44):
access to a turkey. So our goal this year is
I think we're going to try to collect and distribute
thirty eight thousand Thanksgiving meals to people across the state
of Connecticut. You know, budgets are tight, times are tight.
It's not as many as we've done in the past,
but it's still it's going to help. It's there to help.
I mean, it's there to help people. You have a
good Thanksgiving. You know, you guys are great here at heart.
(10:06):
I heart stuff. A bus coming up. We're very excited
going to be in Hamden on November twenty first and
twenty second, like we are every single year collecting turkeys
outside outside of the stop and shop there usually get
a couple thousand plus some some monetary donations to help
us go out and buy turkeys. So so yeah, I
mean the shutdown on top of Thanksgiving and on top
(10:29):
of the holidays, it's certainly not ideal, but we do
want to you know, it's a special time. We want
people to try to be able to have a good
a good holiday with their with their families. So thirty
eight thousand Thanksgiving meals, that's going to be our goal
this year, and again we're hopeful that our donors will
step up to the plate and and help us meet
that goal and when.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
People go to stop and shop that day, yep. Do
you just go in when you go shopping, you just
come out, you put the turkey.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
It's so easy, take care of everything else, and.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
You feel so good and you know you've blessed family.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Absolutely, It's just it's it's wonderful. It's one of my
favorite favorite days of the of of the year. The
whole iHeart family is out there. It's it's it's it's
great and you know, it's something you guys have been
doing for us for for more more than twenty years,
and we really, we really appreciate it. It's also an
opportunity for people to, like you said, give back to
(11:21):
their to their community. There's a lot of people in
Connecticut that don't have the means to be able to help,
but there's also a lot of people that do. And
I think that's what we see often during the during
the holidays, is people who who are in a good
place coming up and saying, hey, look, you know I've
got the ability to buy you know, I'm buying a
turkey for myself. I'm going to buy two more turkeys
(11:43):
and I'm gonna donate them. And that we really appreciate
and you know, also we're we're virtual it's it's it's
it's twenty twenty five. If you don't want to go
lug one of those big frozen turkeys around, you can
go to our our our website ctfoodshare dot org and
you can donate a virtual turkey if you if you want,
you can give us the money. We'll go out and
buy the turkey for you. So we're very very high
(12:05):
tech at Connecticut Food Share.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So they can donate money, yep, they can donate their time,
they volunteer, they can also donate food yep. And are
there other ways that people can get I.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Mean, I think you hit thee the three main things.
For every dollar that gets donated to us at Connecticut
Food Share, we can turn it into two meals for
people across the state of Connecticut. Because we have so
many volunteers and because so much of our food is donated,
we're we're a very efficient operation. So you donate a
dollar at Connecticut Food Share, we can buy two meals
(12:36):
with that. What I always tell people too, is you know,
if you took a dollar and went to the store,
you could buy a can of soup. If you gave
us a dollar, we could buy twenty cans of soup
because we're buying it by the truckload. So it's always
a good thing to be able to give money to
your local food bank. If you want to collect cans
of food, that's great. You can go to your local
food pantry and go on our website and we can
(12:58):
tell you where to drop that off. And time is
important too, Like you said, I mean volunteers. We have
fifty seven hundred volunteers. It's the equivalent of twenty three
full time staff members. We simply could not do what
we'd do if it wasn't for those volunteers. So people
can any type of any type of giving that people
can can engage in is really appreciated. We're a nonprofit.
(13:23):
What people forget sometimes they often ask us about food,
and they often say they want to buy food. The
food is an important piece of it, but it's only
half of it. Half of the equation. The other half
is storing the food and distributing the food. I mean,
you know, it's so we have to pay for things
like trucks and truck drivers and diesel fuel and electricity
because we have you know, coolers and freezers and other
(13:45):
things like that at our facility. So it's about getting
the food, but it's also about how do we get
the food to the people in need.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
To see those trucks pull out, I just like it
all choked up. Yeah, it was just a beautiful site
and I thought, thank you God, you know, for doing this.
We do without Connecticut Food Shore.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Our issue in this country isn't that we don't have
enough food. We have enough food in this country. It's
how do we get the food to the people in need?
And you know, that's that's really what we're what we're
what we're all about. Like you said, you see the
trucks out on the street, you see the mobile trucks
out in the community. We have one hundred and ten
of those mobile truck sites that go out the mobile pantry.
(14:27):
You know, it warms my heart. And I do this
every day for a living, and it's still it's still
warms my heart. During emergencies. We saw that with the
floods in Oxford last year. We had some emergency distributions.
As you know, during COVID we were out there at
renschlar Field distributing food. So we're here for it's what
we do. That's why we do what we do every day.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
And I don't mean to get so deep or so depressing,
but being hungry is a horrible feeling. And then then
to see you when your child is hungry and there's
nothing that you can, well, that's the worst.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
That's the worst. And and you know, every study I'm
not a scientist, but I mean studies have certainly shown
that you know, when kids don't eat, they don't learn, right,
That's that's a proven fact. And if kids aren't eating
at school, or they're not eating before school, it's very
hard for them to learn and to retain information. So
to me, that's like the worst thing any society could
(15:22):
do is let its kids go hungry. And one of
the things I love about being here in Connecticut is
the people of Connecticut always step up to the plate.
They did during COVID, they do during the government shutdowns,
they do it Thanksgiving time. Nobody here in Connecticut wants
to see kids go hungry. And you know, that's why
we do what we do every single day. That's why
(15:43):
we collect dollars, and that's why people are so generous
here in Connecticut because they know that you don't want
anybody going hungry. You certainly don't want kids going hungry.
It's awful.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
What kind of positive responses or feedback have you gone
from people over the years.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, that those are always those are always great. I
remember when we were doing the distributions during COVID at
regular Field, people would bring cards and they would they
would write, make letters and stuff. We'll often get those.
The to me, the the most heartfelt ones are the
ones from people who will say, Hey, I used to
volunteer with you, guys, or I used to donate to
(16:21):
you guys. I never in a million years thought that
I would need your services, but I fell upon hard
times and you helped me get through it, and I
got through it. I mean, those are those are the best. Uh,
Those are the best cards and letters and things that
we get. But the work itself is not easy because
you're dealing with a you know, sometimes quite frankly, a
(16:43):
depressing subject matter. But when you see the thankfulness of people,
and when you see that people are realizing that because
of the work that we're doing and because of the
donations that we get, somebody's actually getting a meal tonight,
I mean that that warms your heart every single time,
and people are so grateful out there, and it just
it just means the world to us. You know, people
(17:04):
say to us all the time, Oh, you're doing God's work.
You're doing God's work. You're doing God's work, and you
start to take that to heart and realize that, you know,
this is an issue that has been going on for
literally thousands of years. I'd love to be able to
say we're going to put ourselves out of business. I'd
love to be able to say that we're going to
solve hunger. But again, you go back to the Old Testament,
(17:27):
and there's food insecurity, there's hunger. I don't think we're
going to solve it, but we certainly can make life
better and easier for the five hundred and fifteen thousand
people that we're serving here in the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Well, you are so thank you put your head on
that pillow at night, knowing you're doing the best you can.
You ever have a story about the starfish, Go ahead,
go for it, all right. There's a million starfish on
the beach and this little girl's running around throwing one
at a time into the and this guy comes up
and he goes, you're never going to be able, it
doesn't matter. And she said, well it that one does
to that one, and that one that you do the
(18:03):
best you can with what you have.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Absolutely, And I think that's one of the type, that's
one of the mentalities that we carry with us every day.
We know we're not solving this major, major problem that's
plagued this world for thousands of years. But if we
could help a family today, and we could help families tomorrow, again,
knowing we did forty five million meals last year, I mean,
that's a big deal. That is that really is. And
(18:28):
sometimes because we're in the thick of it, we have
to take a step back and say to ourselves, yeah,
that really was a big deal. Absolutely, but but but
it is. And look, people think about us during the holidays.
We appreciate that. By the way, we raise a lot
of money during the holidays. But it's three hundred and
sixty five days a year. I mean, it's not I
always say, once the calendar turns to January doesn't mean that,
(18:50):
you know, all of a sudden, hunger's gone away. It's
with us year round, and it's different people all the time,
and whatever we can do to help try to make
their lives a little bit better. That's what we're here for.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I'm speaking with Jason Jakobowski. He is president and chief
executive officer over at Connecticut Food Chare. Again, if you'd
like to volunteer make a donation, you can go to
ctfoodshare dot org. The Thanksgiving stuff a bus is November
twenty first and twenty second in Hamden. For any other details,
again go to ctfoodshare dot org. Thank you so much
(19:25):
for being here today and for taking care of people
the way that you do.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Thanks Allison, always great being here and always great talking
with you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.