INSIGHT WITH SYLVIA MAUS 091723 CENTRAL PA FOOD BANK

"As the largest provider of charitable food in Pennsylvania, the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank asks for your generous support to those who are considered "food insecure" across 27 counties in Central Pennsylvania."

centralpafoodbank.org

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, I'm Sylvia Moss, andthis is Insight, a presentation of iHeartMedia
where we really do care about ourlocal communities and all our listeners who live
here. And that's exactly why Iwant you to know that across Pennsylvania,
they're close to two million people thatare struggling with hunger and a half a
million a half a million little kidsout there in the same position. We're

(00:21):
very fortunate here in Central Pennsylvania becausewe have the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank,
which is the largest provider of charitablefood in the state, directing the distribution
of food to those who are hungryhere at home. And that doesn't mean
that it's not been a challenge,especially over the last couple of years.
In the forefront directing the continued effortsas a Central Pennsylvania Food Bank is a

(00:43):
remarkable woman who I've spent most ofthe who has spent most of our careers
dedicated to the mission. Tara Davisis a senior vice president and chief Program
Officer at the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank. And I gotta kind of, like,
I don't know, tell everybody rightnow that I have known Tara Davis
since she was a teenager, andI knew when I first met her this

(01:06):
young lady at the time, atthe time, she was a young lady
age. Sorry, Tara, Ican't help it. Anyway. She was
so warm and so generous, andshe was looking for something that she could
wrap her life around, and shecertainly does. Let me share something happened
a couple of years ago, probablyabout ten twelve years ago. I called
Tara. Knew she was working hardat the food bank, and I told

(01:30):
her about a family that was reallydown and out and they needed food.
I don't know if you remember thisor not, but she got in her
car, she filled it up withstuff for this family, and she had
delivered. And I thought, ohGod, bless her. What a wonderful
girl. And she's continued to workfor the food bank, moved up to
chain and now she's a big shotover there. Controls allowed the programs.
Tara, I want to ask youthe thing that bothers me the most.
We had a conversation a couple ofweeks ago, and I wanted to know,

(01:53):
like years ago, might have beenten years ago, and you told
me that the number of people backthen was increasing. But what you tell
me the other day really kind ofupset me. Between COVID and the economy
things going on. How has yourneed changed now? During COVID, we
thought we were going to see thatwas going to be the largest numbers,

(02:14):
right that we've ever served, andto date it still holds true. But
we are creeping up there. Weare only three percent below what we were
serving at the height of the pandemicfor right now, two families. Oh
yeah, it's pretty it's pretty astonishing. Since March, we have actually seen

(02:36):
an increase in fifteen percent of ourservices. A lot of that has to
do with the emergency relief programs ending, most certainly the emergency allotments of the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program otherwise known asSNAP. Yeah, I've had people tell
me that they were getting more moneyfrom SNAP all of a sudden, that's

(02:58):
been cut down drastically. Yeah,And that was those emergency allotments that they
were provided throughout the pandemic, andthen in March they all went away,
and so some people were receiving,you know, five hundred dollars and then
all of a sudden received one hundreddollars. How can you feed a family
on one hundred bucks? And that'sthe problem. You know, we are
seeing more and more families in needright now, and so you know,

(03:23):
one in ten individuals are facing foodin security, one in seven our children.
Sixty percent of the clients we serveright now are working families with children.
So not only did the snap emergencyallotments end, but we also had
the ending of the expanded child taxcredits. These two programs proved to be

(03:47):
enormously effective at providing economic stability forworking families, and sadly, all of
that has come to an end,and families are now seeing an increase in
expenses of at least five hundred dollarsa month, and that includes a little
over ten percent of increase in theirgrocery bills too. You know, we

(04:08):
have to do we have to wecan help people that pay the taxes in
this country because we have to begiven all our money away to foreign people.
We have to, you know,build buildings from politicians who have died.
We got to put those up there. I know, I try very
hard not to get up on mysoapbox, but this is what burns me

(04:30):
up. All the waste, andit's these families and the middle class who
have made this country what it is. It's a disgrace to do this stuff.
It's horrible. I can't believe thatpeople aren't support Cherry's supposed to begin
at home, right, Thank godyou guys are out there doing that.
Tara, tell me about you havea rough idea. How many people you
serve every month at the food bank. Yeah, we actually are serving over

(04:54):
two hundred thousand households neighbors each month, working with over eleven hundred of our
partners throughout our twenty seven service territory, twenty seven county. So it was
territory that's pretty big, twenty sevenyear. It goes from where it goes
from Harrisburg up to william Sport.Right, don't you have two up there?
Yeah, if we have two hubs. So we have our two main

(05:16):
hubs, one hub here in Harrisburg, and then we also have a hub
in William Support. So the williamSupport hub is the one that actually allows
us to reach the northern county.So, if you took the state of
Pennsylvania, split us in three,we're the middle section from top to bottom
to the New York you know,to the top up to the New York
border to the bottom down to theMaryland border. Oh much, every issue

(05:38):
that I talk about on this show, especially in the last couple of months,
I've had to say when people thinkabout rough times in Madrawi where it's
child abuse or hunger or anything likethis, they think, not here at
home, doesn't happen. Let metell you something. This is another one
of those situations, and it's veryserious. You talked about your member agencies.
Who are they? How do youbecome a member? Yeah? So

(06:00):
our member agencies really have a widerange of who they are. Like I
said, we have over eleven hundredpartners who are helping us feed our neighbors
each and every day throughout the year. Some of those partners can be food
pantries that are connected to a church, or they can be your Salvation Army,
or they can be a community action. They can also be a senior

(06:24):
center. They can also be justtheir own private kind of pantry service.
It just really all depends on thatcommunity and what their needs are and who's
there to be able to help.I know you're trying your best to try
to make sure the food actually doesget to excuse me, where it's supposed
to go to the families you werechatting with me the other day on the

(06:46):
phone about something you're doing now calledhunger mapping. What's that about. Yeah,
it's actually really exciting. There areso many awesome things. Like you
said, I've been at the foodbank for years, there's been one hundred
years. I look like it.No, it's been a little over sixteen
years. And you know, everyyear we have something new going on.
But this is really, I thinkgoing to be very transformational for a service

(07:11):
area and the work that we doso our community hunger mapping projects really help
us hone in on each county,one county at a time where we're really
able to take different information, whetherit be food and security data, overlay
that with census data along with snaputilization rates and other things like that that

(07:32):
really help us see at a zipcode level where the need is you isolated
exactly do we have enough food cominginto this area or is there too much
food going into that area? Andthen really we can take a look at
that with other community members, includingour pantries, and say, Okay,
how can we get more food?Why can't why is there not enough food

(07:56):
right now? And what are someof those solutions that we can come together
as a collaborative partnership. I knowover the years the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank
I have to do is meagine peoplesay, oh, yeah, let's have
a food drive. Is it stillthat way? So food drives can become
very labor intensive. And there's nothingwrong with the food drive, but when

(08:18):
you are you know, looking atkind of the ability of your staff and
the time that you have to sortthrough that product to make sure it's not
expired, make sure things aren't openedor broken, dented, things like that.
Again, it can be very timeconsuming and so many times what we
say is we can do a lotmore with donations, monetary donations. So

(08:41):
for every dollar we receive, we'reactually able to turn that into four meals.
And so you know, we havea larger buying power for our organization.
We're able to buy tractor trailers worthof food maybe for less than what
somebody can maybe buy it off theshelf. And so if somebody really is

(09:01):
looking to do a food drive,you know, we have our local partners
that we can partner them with.Or we also have this really cool tool
what we call virtual Food Drive,and so they can set a virtual food
drive up which is still monetary donations. However, in the virtual food Drive,
you can choose the food that youpurchase, so it just kind of

(09:22):
brings both that physical aspect of thefood drive and then the monetary piece together.
And that's on your website. ThatYeah, that's pretty cool. I
like that. You know you've gonethrough a lot of changes over the years,
and I know they've been campaigned tohelp you out. One of the
things that always stays in minds isthe fill a Glass of Hope campaign.

(09:45):
Can you talk about that. Iknow Dave Dave from the from the Pennsylvania
Durham's Association, he's a saint,yeah, and he always gets excited about
helping out. Philiglass with Hope isso dear to our hearts. At Central
Pennsylvania Food Bank. Years ago,we had started that campaign to be able
to raise dollars to be able toprovide fresh milk, which is so important

(10:09):
kids, Yes, it really is. And you know, food banking really
has changed throughout the years. Youknow, we're no longer the just the
non perishable, dented cans and expiredyou know brand flake sitting on people's I
used to eat them as a child, but wish some sugar and bananas.

(10:31):
But we really are into making surethat our households and our neighbors are being
served fresh product and that includes freshmilk. And so once we started that
Philo Glass with Hope campaign, wetook it throughout Pennsylvania and so Feeding PA
really now is the one that reallyruns with that and helps raise dollars across

(10:56):
the state so that every one ofour regional food banks within the state actually
are able to provide fresh milk toall of their partners. I'll tell you
what I ad mind that man DaveSmith is incredible. Now when it comes
in here, I'd love to teasehim it could be he's also responsible for
the milkshake at the farm show.Yeah. I would like to ask you

(11:20):
to take us through the series ofprograms that you have for individual groups,
like let's start with let's start withthe kids. Yeah, So we have
a number of different youth programs.Our youth programs are you know, we
have programming that's within the schools,right, So we have the before and
after school programs, the feeding programs, and we call that a kid's cafe

(11:41):
program but those provide either a warmmeal or snack to children after school that
may or may not be going hometo dinner that evening. Something that kind
of piggybacks off of that programming isa backpack program. That backpack program is
provided to children on a Thursday ora Friday to be able to take home

(12:05):
and be able to have food overthe weekends. Wonderful. We have found
that some children do not have foodover the weekend, are not there to
be able to their parents may notbe around to be able to make meals
for them. So we're providing poptop cans and you know that they can
use the microwave and things like that. Recognizing many of those children have families

(12:26):
at home who are also hungry.We really have been trying to expand that
program into more of a hybrid programwhere we're able to provide larger items for
those backpacks, or even develop aschool pantry, which is just like it
says, it's a pantry, butit's at a school. It's meeting the
parents and the families where they're wherethey're at and where they're very comfortable and

(12:50):
kind of a trusted community source.And then in the summer, which we
just wrapped up, would be oursummer feeding program where we're providing breakfast and
launch two children at different feeding atdifferent rec centers, boys and girls clubs,
parks and rex whatever summer programming istaking place throughout the area. You

(13:13):
know a lot of senior citizens overthe years have been forced to it,
and I guess it's getting a wholelot worse. Now there were do I
do I turn my heat on?Or do I buy my medication? And
who knows what they get to eat? You have wonderful programs in place for
senior citizens too. We do soin addition to senior citizens being able to
get snap benefits and utilizing a foodpantry, we do have the Pennsylvania Senior

(13:37):
Food Box program. So it's abox of food that they receive once a
month that you know, provides themfruits, vegetables, pastas, proteins,
things like that. And it isa government program, so there are qualifications,
but recognizing that some folks maybe maybea penny or maybe a dollar to

(14:00):
over. We have a privately fundedprogram at the food Bank that is called
the Elder Share Program pretty much piggybacksoff of the Pennsylvania Senior Food Box program
without the it's just different, differentproduct. Really, what about something that's
close to me, the veterans.I know that that's been a special program
for a number of years. Whatdo you do with that? Yeah,

(14:22):
so that falls within our mobile distributionprogramming. And so our Military Share program
is just what it says. Itprovides food to active and non active military
families, and so it's just notto the member of the military, but
it is also to their families.And so many of these distributions are taking

(14:43):
place at local VFWS legions, placeswhere those that are in the military have
been in the military, are familiarwith and comfortable receiving help from. And
so those sites are receiving fresh fruits, fetch stables, milk, meats,
and dry goods once a month.And then the other mobile distribution program we

(15:07):
do is called Fresh Express. Sothis program really is a mobile dropping go
system where we partner up with folksthat may not have a brick and mortar
facility to be able to serve foodout of, but we can drop the
food and it will be distributed rightthen and there. And this really helps
us fill in the pockets where wemay not have enough distribution centers around.

(15:33):
And really the Fresh Express program focusesexactly what it says. So there's produced
being distributed eggs and milk. Howdo you get your funding? I mean,
you have anybody who knows anything aboutthe nonprofit world knows that they're not
going to pay you for your staff, They're not going to pay for things,
they pay for programs. How doyou do it? Yeah, such

(15:58):
a good question. I mean,obviously, with covering twenty seven counties and
serving as many people as we do, you know, many of our programs
are government funded, so we doget you know, dollars for that,
but that doesn't cover all they expectto hear that from everybody that comes here
and here where I mean, evenwith senior citizens there. Did you know
there are senior citizens that are innursing homes that are now out on the

(16:22):
streets because the government's not paying theirpart of what they should be paying.
Yeah. Yeah, And so werely a lot on the public and foundation
grants. Really, and so weare regularly raising funds for the Food Bank
through different fundraising avenues, whether itbe through the mail or through emails,
whatever that might be. Your givingTuesdays and your you know, give local

(16:51):
kind of campaigns, all of thosekinds of things is something that we take
advantage of so that we can raiseevery last petty available for us to raise,
because you know, we have avery large budget and a lot of
that goes towards feeding over two hundredthousand individuals each and every month. Do

(17:11):
you need volunteers? We do.Yeah, we can always utilize volunteers.
You know, we have a packingfacility that actually packs all of these boxes
I've been talking about for all ofthe programs, so we have that that's
needed. We also have administrative volunteersthat are always needed too. We have

(17:32):
many in our department that you know, we wouldn't be able to do the
things that we do without them,that's for sure. We keep them busy.
So yeah, I mean we ifsomebody is interested in volunteering for us,
even if they're not local enough tovolunteer at one of our facilities,
whether it be in Harrisburg or williamSport, we can see about getting them

(17:52):
connected with one of our partners aswell. I can guarantee you call the
Food Bank, and I know Terrahas got a really huge job she does
every day. They're not going toput you on hold and say hold on
and put you like like we're allused to hanging on the phone. You're
going to get someone to talk towho's going to help you out right?
Kara, Oh you bet. Youknow. You mentioned about your website and
opportunities there. But one thing thatI thought was really cool is people that

(18:17):
are listening, a lot of themwork for big companies. There's opportunities for
companies to get involved with the dollarsabout it. Oh well, right now
is actually September is Hunger Action,right, and so we have this month,
we have the ability to double folksdonations and that is you know,
from different company companies that have agreedto kind of do those matching donations.

(18:42):
So there's always an opportunity for youknow, organizations and companies big or small,
Big or small. Like I said, every every dollar counts. For
every dollar we receive, we canturn it into four means. It's amazing.
That's absolutely amazing. It's incredible whatwe can do with just a dollar.
So you know, whether it's bigor small, we can make a

(19:03):
huge difference with a financial donation.Do you get as far as support from
the legislature in Congress? Are theysupporting you as much as they shouldn't if
they're not, what do you suggestthey are? They're listening. They definitely
are listening, and I think they'redoing what you know, what they can.
We always want more, right,We always want more state food purchasing

(19:26):
program funds. We have no choice. Do you have the need? Right?
Exactly, So we're always going toask for more dollars in the budget.
But yes, they are very supportive. In fact, the end of
this month, we actually have,for an honor of Hunger Action month,
we actually have the Capital Capital AllStars Game. So what's this is actually

(19:49):
the seventh year that we've done thisand it features members of the Pennsylvania Statehouse
and Senate. So on Tuesday,September twenty six, at five pm,
we'll be at the F and BField in Harrisburg for for a friendly game
of softball. Oh that is awesome. What else do you have coming up?

(20:10):
Oh my gosh, I have thesay me see. It is fun.
It's definitely a great time. So, you know, a couple other
things we have going on the endof this month. September twenty third,
we which is a Saturday, wehave a packathon happening in Harrisburg at our
at our packing facility, it isa twelve hour pacathon that is just packing

(20:32):
boxes and packing food for our neighborsfor twelve hours long. So we've got
quite a few folks coming up.We still have some of some slots available
for those volunteer opportunities, but wedo also have public officials that are participating
in that event as well. Sopeople, yeah, we're so well,
we're so excited to have them.You know, we call them our friends

(20:53):
for sure. But you know,we also have a lot of other great
things happening throughout the entire Service territory. We have proclamations that we've been collecting
from our county commissioners. We alsohave some advocacy programming that we've been doing
or around the Farm Bill for thisparticular federal budget. The Farm Bill,

(21:18):
for those that don't know, isan anti hunger and nutrition public policy that
the US sets spending levels and programguidelines actually for the next five years.
And this is different feeding programs likeSNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,
the Pennsylvania Senior Food Box Program,and the Emergency Food Assistance Program. So

(21:42):
many of our feeding programs rely heavilyon this Farm Bill coming up. And
you know what I've said this severaltimes on this programp you don't think us
at roots efforts everything is accomplished ona local level, right, So find
out who your congressperson is, Calumagain, call them again, write letters
because if you the guys, especiallyaround election time, if you don't think

(22:04):
they pay attention, think again,that's a great thing to do. Get
in touch with your local congress personor even your state representative saying why aren't
you doing something I support? Yeah? I mean this is this is what
changes America always has, right.Yeah, Well, and I will tell
you what if there if people aresitting there saying, well, I don't
know my local official and I don'tknow how I get in contact with them,

(22:27):
all they need to do is visitour website, Central Pa Foodbank dot
org and then you're gonna see rightthere on the front page, orange block
that says Hunger Action Month. Youclick on that page and there's going to
be a link for you to beable to find your local your local person,
to be able to advocate and dosome grassroot efforts with You've been doing

(22:48):
this for how many years now?Sixteen? Is it patter? Oh gosh,
I think I met you when youwere sixteen, what six out your
mind of things that really like,I'll never forget when you delivered those when
I think you first hadn't been atthe food bank girl long, and I
thought, oh God, bless her, she's going to go someplace. And
you've always been so dedicated to thefood Bank. Can you share a couple

(23:11):
of little stories about things that havehappened to you over the years and that
touched you like you coming like thattouched me. Wow. There's just so
many different ones to be able totalk about, but I think the ones
that hit home the most is whenyou meet somebody. I'll be wearing a
food Bank shirt and I'll be inpublic, I'll be doing something in the

(23:36):
public or in the community. MaybeI'm even just grocery shopping and somebody comes
up to me and says, thankyou. I need your services, and
you guys were there when we neededit. Thank you so much. And
you know what, many of thosefolks that have thanked me for the services,
they don't utilize them anymore. Andthat's what we're looking to do,
right is be that to be ableto be that organization that can lift families

(24:03):
up at a time when they havebeen broken because they've had maybe one expense
that just took them over the edgeand they needed that assistance. But then
we gave them that assistance for maybethree six months and now they're able to,
you know, provide food on theirown. So I think those are

(24:23):
the things that stick out the mostis when people say thank you, not
recognizing how many lives we've touched inthe community. That is something I know.
There's opportunities, and I do havean age limit as far as volunteering
at any we do at our facilities. Okay, yeah, and so we
asked that they're sixteen, it's sixteenor older. Okay, Well, and

(24:45):
I've said this on the program VolunteeringGetting Kids, and I'm sure you're two
kids the Wins. Well, I'mnot going to tell she's got beautiful kids.
They're still growing up and they're funnylike you. Especially. Well anyway,
I said to my grandson, whoyou know, Joshi, when he
was growing up about volunteering and stuff. And I can remember as a teenager,

(25:11):
you know, they don't want toget off their rent. They just
want to sit there and play withtheir phones. And he was talking about
volunteer. I said, called Tara, Called Tara, you're a big kid.
Now you can do all that kindof stuff. But nowadays, when
you apply for a college or toa college, you have to have good
grades, right, But they lookat the whole person and we see volunteered
in such a wonderful food bank.I mean, come on, I mean,

(25:32):
you guys are pretty much the staron the communities. No, everybody
knows the Senti Pennsylvanian Food Bank.And to do something like that to encourage
families to do volunteer and kids toprepare for their futures. And not only
that, but you can attest tothis too. When a child sees that
they're doing something that's helping somebody else, Wow, what that does for their

(25:53):
self esteem, doesn't it? Tara? Yeah, yeah, it definitely does.
Sometimes my children ask why do yousmile at strangers? I'm like,
well, why wouldn't I smile ata stranger? They deserve to be smiled
at too, you know, Imean, every life that you touch can
make a difference, and then youjust hope and pray that it will be

(26:14):
paid forward. Yeah, you know, and so I think all of all
of us, the eleven hundred pluspartners and our over sixteen thousand volunteers right
sixteen Oh yeah, we uh huhyeah, Monday through Friday and then some
Saturdays. We have shifts going allthe time. But all of us that

(26:38):
are, you know, part ofthis mission of fighting hunger, improving lives,
and strengthening communities, we do itbecause we care. We care about
those that we know, we careabout those that we don't know. We
care about humanity. And if you'reone of my regular listeners, you've often
heard me said that I can tellwhen people come into this stuff studio ac

(27:00):
usually people in position of authority,leadership. You can kind of tell after
doing this for almost thirty years,who's waiting to move on to the next
highest bank position? Who is there? Tara, You've been there for so
many years. Not only do Ithink of you almost like my daughter,
You're a wonderful, wonderful person,but what you have given and continue to
give to Central Pennsylvania Food Bank andto all and just listen to what you

(27:23):
tell your kids. We need morepeople like you in the communion. And
thank you so much. Thank youfor coming in, thank you for always
caring, and thank you for endingup at the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank.
Well, thank you, Sylvia.I really appreciate your kind words, Kid,
But it's it's it's it's an honorto work for the food Bank and

(27:45):
to be able to serve our communitiesand work alongside of these volunteers and volunteers
and staff members that care just asmuch. And for everyone out there that
has given something to the food Bankor just helped provide a meal to somebody
a need, I just want tosay thank you, thank you so much
for forgiving and caring about others andtheir website addressing in its Central Pa Foodbank

(28:11):
dot org. Thank you so much. And to my listeners who've always been
able to count on you guys outthere, I view you've also always supported
the needs of the Central Pennsylvania FoodBank. They need you more than ever
now. Please the Central Pennsylvania FoodBank is Central Pa Foodbank dot org.
And please remember Insight is on teniHeart stations and always available on your favorite

(28:33):
podcast step. I'm Sylvia Moss.This has been Insight. Thank you so
much for listening. See you nextweek.