CEOs You Should Know- Moveable Feast

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Episode Transcript

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iHeartMedia presents CEOs you should Know.Hi'm John Dinkle, former president and publisher
of the Baltimore Business Journal and nowfounder and CEO of Vinkle Business Development.
This is iHeartRadio's CEOs you Should Knowand I'm here today with suey Elias,
executive director of Movable Feast. WelcomeSue, thanks for being here. Thank
you John. It's a pleasure tobe here. So let's begin by getting

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to know you in the organization alittle bit more so for those who may
not be familiar, Do you tellus more about Movable Feast? Sure?
So, a Movable Feast has beenaround for just over thirty years. Our
mission is to improve the health ofMarylanders that live at that intersection of food
and security and chronic illness. Sowe prepare and deliver medically tailored meals and

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we provide nutrition education with our goalof achieving racial, social, and health
equity. So we've served Baltimore Cityand fourteen additional counties in Maryland, including
the entire Eastern Shore. Wow,What's what's the mission of the organization?
So that is that mission is toimprove that health of Maryland that experienced food

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in security and chronic illness, andwe deliver meals right to the homes of
people who do not have access tohealthy food. They can't afford or prepare
or access food, with our goalof setting a place at the table for
everyone who needs access to food fortheir health. Got and what's the percentage

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of your constituents that needing food?But then also well the kind of the
medical side, and there were twodifferent kind of components to what you do
right right, So one hundred percentof our clients experience both food and security
and chronic illness. So the majorityof our clients are below the poverty level,
and so they both cannot do nothave food security, so they do

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not have all the food they need, and they also have a chronic illness,
particularly HIV, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, and people with
cancer or in hospice care. Andare there any other programming services that you
do that you'd like to mention.So our medically tailored meal program is the

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heart of what we do, andthat is both the delivery of meals right
to people in their homes and that'saccompanied with medical nutrition therapy. So it's
our registered dietitians who provide one onone medical nutrition therapy to the people we
serve, helping them set and achievetheir health goals. We also have a

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very small program in Baltimore City only, a medical transportation program that provides medical
transportation to appointments to pick up medicationfor people who have who are living with
HIV. God Okay, thank youappreciate you giving us more detail on that.
And so as the executive director,what are some of the main kind

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of strategic priorities that you have forthis year and even beyond. So I
started at Movable Feast in June oftwenty twenty and we were, of course
right in the beginning of the pandemic, and we knew that we needed to
set some strategic priorities so that weknew how we were going to emerge from

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this, this experience that we've allhad, that's that's changed our lives and
changed the way. So we setfive strategic priorities for the organization back in
early twenty twenty one. Those wereto center racial and social equity, grow
and develop our people, our boardand our staff and our volunteers and our

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clients, partner to expand our reach, used data to demonstrate and improve our
impact and engage the community in ourmission. We've always been a very community
driven organization, using volunteers and partnersin order to meet our mission, and
so we set those as our fivekey strategic priorities or in the third year

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of that strategic plan, and sowe're really focused now on being fully integrated
into the healthcare system. We believe, we believe that food is medicine,
and so we want to be apartner with the healthcare system to provide healthy
food to people to help them meettheir health goals and to heal and be

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well. We are looking at havingthe data to show the impact that we
make both on individual health outcomes,how people are doing, how healthy they
are, and on what we knowis a very expensive healthcare system in this
country. So we want to makean impact on that and show that it's
cheaper to provide healthy food to peoplethan to have people struggling to make choices

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between food and prescriptions or we're turningto um UH the the emergency room because
they're not stable in their food,in their and their health um And then
we're also looking to break down barriers. We want to make sure everyone has
access to the healthy food they needto thrive, and we know that there
are barriers out there for people thatdon't have access to healthy food and particularly

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medically tailored food. Yeah, that'sgreat, thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, And what's been the impactwith you know, the past twelve bunths
with the economy, the rising costsof food that I think everybody's you know,
kind of dealing with a little bitum one way or another. UM,
what what has what? How hasthat impacted your organization and kind of
what do you what are you doingto um, you know, to kind

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of mitigate the impact there well.As a food provider, we have um
felt that in our in our budget, that impact of food costs. People
have felt it at the grocery store. We've felt it. Our food costs
have increased about fifteen percent, that'salmost two hundred thousand dollars in the past
year, just to meet the needsof the people that we were already serving

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our medically tailored meals. So whata medically tailored meal is. It is
a meal that is developed through inconsultation with our executive chef and registered dietitians,
and so those meals that we deliver, we deliver ten to twelve meals
a week plus ten servings of freshproduce to people that meets about fifty to

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sixty percent of their nutritional needs.Those meals are specifically tailored to the chronic
illness that they're living with, sowe don't have flexibility and just saying,
oh, you know, green beansare really expensive this week, so instead
we're going to provide cauliflower. Right, you can't do that for someone who
is managing diabetes, who's managing kidneydisease, who is living with HIV and

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needs specific nutrition for their medication.So we don't have that flexibility. So
our costs have increased significantly, butwe did not reduce the number of people
we were serving. We just madea commitment to raise the additional funds and
that goes along with our commitment duringthe pandemic. We did not miss a

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single meal delivery during the pandemic becausewe are serving people particularly vulnerable and during
this time. So that's the commitmentof our staff, the commitment of our
supporters, the commitment of our volunteersto make sure everyone, everyone who needs
it, gets fed. You've mentioneda little bit about the funding, so

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like, how are you all funded? It's a combination of funding. It
takes a village. As we oftensay, we do get government funding.
About thirty five percent of our fundingcomes from both federal and state funding for
people either specifically with HIV, alsoto the state for people with the vulnerable

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populations. Then we raise through thegenerosity of our supporters about fifteen to twenty
percent of our funding through our events, through direct donations, through corporate donations,
corporate sponsorships. And then of coursewe have our foundations that are about
ten percent of our funding. Andthen a growing piece of our funding is

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through these healthcare partnerships fully reimbursable mealsthat are paid for through either insurance or
buy a healthcare entity such as ahospital, where they know it's cheaper to
provide healthy food and support through ourmedical nutrition therapy than it is to continue
to pay for the high cost ofsomeone with uncontrolled diabetes or is returning to

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an emergency room for visits, thatit's healthier and cheaper to partner with us,
and so that's a growing part ofour funding. Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, I appreciate you sharing thattoo, and you mentioned events.
I know Movable Feast does a coupleof major events each year. Could you
talk to us about that a littlebit. Our biggest event, so Ride

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for the Feast is coming up onSaturday, May thirteenth, So we're actively
fundraising right now. And that's awonderful event where riders go out to the
Eastern Shore in eastern Maryland and thatrepresents the farthest point where we deliver to
and they do a one hundred milebike ride. So and the proceeds go

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right to our home delivered meal program. Our riders get sponsors, they form
teams, they get sponsors, andthat's an amazing event and it raises about
seven hundred thousand dollars. That's fantastic, excellent congratulations and I would yeah encourage
our listeners to check that out.That sounds like a lot of fun.
How can you talked about sponsors andthings like that? So how can the

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business community support Movable Feast. Wehave a great partnerships with the business community.
There's multiple ways. We have avery active volunteer program and we have
many businesses that come in and volunteer. I think in fact, I just
saw Morgan Stanley was here this morning. Great so teams come in and they

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help us prepares meals from chopping vegetablesto packing our trays to packing up those
meals in the bags to go outfor delivery. It's a wonderful team building
event to come in and volunteer anddo something together that benefits others. We
have a sponsorship of our events,so Ride for the Feast and our other

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event, Dining Out for Life.So corporate sponsorship is an important part of
that fundraising. But another big componentis our matching donations. So many of
the local businesses provide matching nations.When their team members don't directly to us,

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then those those companies provide a matchwhich doubles investment made by the individual.
Got it. That's great. Solots of opportunities for the business community
involved from the sponsorship standpoint to volunteerismand community and off the employee engagement.
So that's that's great. Thank youfor sharing all that. Looking looking forward,
what are your kind of big strategicpriorities for movable Feasts. So we're

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actually on the tail end of athree year strategic plan and we created this
plan back in twenty twenty one aswe were looking at the impact of the
pandemic and where we were as anorganization and where society. We're looking at
healthcare, and a big piece ofour strategic vision for the organization is to

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be fully integrated into the health system. Certainly, we know there's plenty of
research out there that shows that investingin nutrition and healthy food is is less
costly and more beneficial to the individualthan having to pay for return visits to
the emergency room or return hospitalization.And so we're working in partnership with health

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insurers and healthcare systems at hospitals andprimary care or primary care groups to really
become fully integrated and have the healthcaresystem pay for the meals that people receive,
so that we're supporting nutrition and alsokeeping healthcare costs down. The switch
gears a little bit. Tell usa little bit about yourself and your background

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and how you got to this pointin your career. Sure, so,
I'm actually originally Flow, New York. I'm not a native Marylander, and
I would I say that, youknow, I eat my chicken wings with
blue teeth and it ginchier on thebills. Those are That's where I stick
to my roots there. I wasvery lucky to be involved in service my

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whole life. I went to theUniversity Notre Dame and was involved in a
lot of community service there and thenwent and got a master's in Social world
community organizing at the University of Pittsburgh. And I've been working in nonprofits ever
since, really looking at a systemsapproach. So where do nonprofits fit the
system of trying to create more justcommunity straw cultures, and particularly serving the

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most vulnerable. I've been here inMaryland for twenty five years working in the
nonprofit world, and then became theexecutive director of Movable Feast in June of
twenty twenty. That's great, congratulations. So when to talk about COVID and
I know we're kind of past that, and I was curious, you know,
what did you learn about kind ofmanaging and leading people the pandemic?

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I mean, you came in thereas the executive verg like me, Oh
my gosh, Like right, youdid, right, right? I did.
I came right in Une of twentytwenty, and the first thing that
I experience in steer a Movable Feastwas the commitment and the passion of our
dedicated staff to continue to serve peopleduring a time when we didn't know much

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about what was happening, and I'mproud to say we never missed a meal
delivery, and so we went overone hundred volunteers a week to zero volunteers
a week and still needing to produceand deliver eight thousand meals a week.
And it really was the commitment ofthe staff to make that happen as safely

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as possible for them, because certainlyour clients were in a very particularly vulnerable
situation when you're talking about people withchronic illness and had no way getting food,
and their biggest fear was, well, what happens if movable feasts can't
help me? And so our commitmentto this was steadfast, and I really

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credit the staff and of course oursupporters willing to financially support us, even
though there we didn't do our fundraisingevent right for the feast in twenty twenty,
it enabled us to continue to serve, you know, at the same
time in twenty twenty, we werealso looking anew at race disparities and systemic

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racism within this country and knowing that, you know, as an organization that's
certain people of color, what didwe need to do to continue to break
down barriers to people who don't haveaccess to medically tailor rolls to nutritious food.
So looking at that, that's wherewe were focusing a lot on really

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good communication. How do we communicatewith our staff to keep them safe,
How do we communicate with our clientsso that understand that we were still going
to be able to serve them certainlytranparency, that we were going to dig
deep and look at the way wedo our services and ask really tough questions
about the service that we provide andhow we engage the community and certainly recognize

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the lived experience of the people serve. We learned that it can be both
and we could keep our staff safeand still serve our clients. And we're
trying to continue with that of bothand we can both serve people but also
and also look at these more systemicquestions of justice and equity and ensure that

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we are continuing to break down barriersand set a place at the table for
everybody who needs medical tailor. Iwas like really talking about leadership on the
show, and so so how wouldyou drive your leadership style? I would
describe it as really believing my roleand leader is to grow and develop other

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leaders and that would be our staff, that would be in our board,
that would be the people, ourvolunteers, and the people who support us.
Some people would call it servant leadershiptransformational leadership. I've had good fortune
of working with Loyal University here intheir Center for Community Service and Justice,
and through that work was introduced toby doctor Rachel Rehman, who is a

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doctor who ended up experiencing cancer,and she talked about she wrote an article
called helping, fixing, or servingAnd if you are trying to help or
fix someone, that is a powerdynamic. That is that is out of
proportion, that you're looking at someoneelse broken and you as the person with
the answer as opposed to us servantapproach is we serve each other. Right,

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we're all broken, we are alsoall extremely talented and have answers.
And so if we come together inthat approach of transformational interactions serving each other,
that's when there can be true transformation, and not just of the individual
but of systems, because one onand relationships are important, but we're only

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going to make real change if we'relooking at systems. Yeah, I love
that. I kind of look atmyself as a someone who was a Serpent
Leader too when I was managing theBusiness Journal and the team there, And
I like the way you put thatbecause you know, the helping and fixing,
like you say, it's like assumingsomething's wrong with that or they're not

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doing it your way, you knowkind of thing. I always liked that
book. And I mentioned this acouple of times when the show is um
Daniel Pink's book Drive, which talksabout you know, breaking down those barriers,
letting people like do the job.That's how they do it, you
know. Um, that's why Ihired them. Let them you know,
Um, even though it's different theway you do things, that's okay.
As long as they get the jobdone. They're being their expectations and their

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job responsibilities. And I think that'swhere that Serpent leadership really kind of comes
into is is you're you're you're saying, what can I do today to help
you to or not help? Butwhat can I do take breakdown any barriers,
give you the support and training andcoaching and all things so that you
can do the job the way youwant to do it and be successful.
And yeah, I love that.I am a true, true believer in

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that as well, you know,that's our approach to the way we work
with the people we serve our clients. And so if we're not doing that
as an organization as well, that'san academy that we can't that's gonna it's
not going to lead to success forus. So that if we're saying to
our clients, you have you knowwhat's best for you, Let's help you.
Let's help you with resources, right, Let's let's help you get the

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resources that you should have. Anyway, everyone, everyone should have the THEYDED
to feed their family. No oneshould have to choose between feeding their families,
feeding themselves and fortifying their health.So, you know, the same
thing with the way we run theorganization or trying to is we all come
to the table with talent and withpassion and with with great ideas, and

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we're looking at the ways that wecan support each other and give people the
opportunity to be leaders and help createthat pathway to meeting our mission. Yeah,
that's great. Great, So,so what gets you excited about the
sure Removable Feast. This work thatwe're doing with the healthcare systems is very

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exciting where midst of partnership with otherfood insecurity organizations and some Mosity Maryland medical
systems of really trying to figure outhow do we create a pathway where people
who are including in security, enterthe healthcarecare system can get connected with the
right food at the right time.And so Movable Feast is a very specific

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intervention for people with chronic illness withvery specific needs. We might not be
the best intervention or the best servicefor them over the long term. Maybe
then the food bank would be helpfulto them, or for people who are
older, maybe it's meals on wheels. Long term, we're there for the
first six months when they're diagnosed withdiabetes or going into cancer treatment. And

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so that is really exciting because onewe have to be working in collaboration with
other organizations, and if we're busyprotecting ourselves and protecting our little island saying
like we need the resources, ifwe're not collaborating and figuring out how to
get the resources to pe people whoneed them, wis going to see a
lot of people, a lot ofunmet need out there. So that is

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very exciting to me. And alsowhat's happening on a national level. There
was a conference White House Conference onHunger and Nutrition back in September the first
and over fifty years and real focuson medically tailored meals the Biden Harris administration,
meaning a pillar having Medicare and Medicaidfund medically tailored meals, and so

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that national recognition with the data that'sout there that shows this is an incredibly
important service that we're providing and onethat is having a really positive impact in
the healthcare system as a whole interms of both cost and outcome. Yeah,
that's great, and that definitely issomething excited about for sure. So
what keeps you up at night?I think what keeps me up at night

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this is making sure that the staffhere has the support they need. I
mean, we know in the nonprofitworld, people are not paid what they
should be. Our frontline staff.Society expects that if you're doing a good
deed, you're doing it out ofthe goodness of your heart, which is
true to raise a family and thethings that you want to do, right

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uh huh. And I think thatyou know, we've seen during COVID toll
taken on particular particular profession, certainlyteachers. My husband is a teacher,
the healthcare profession. But we've seenthis in the nonprofit world where trying to
do this very essential job literally beggingfor the resources, and it has taken

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a toll on the people doing thejob, and people have left the nonprofit
world. We've had great staff thathave left and the ones that are still
here they're very committed, but we'veseen the toll it's taken on them because
they've been juggling things like health intheir own families and kids at home instead
in school, and from other challengesthat they faced during the pandemic. And

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so that's what keeps me up atnight is making sure that the people who
are doing this job are supported andthat they are appreciated for the incredible work
they do every day. So towrap things up, is there anything else
you'd like our listeners to know aboutyou and Movable Feast. Movable Feed has
always been an organization that is succeedsbecause of the support of the community.

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We can't do it alone. Itis because we have an incredible volunteer base,
people who are coming in and helpingus make them. We have people
who deliver meals to our clients.Then, of course all the support we
get from two hundred people riding twohundred mile bike ride for Ride for the
Feast. Our other event is DiningOut for Life in October where people go
out to dinner at restaurants and aportion of the proceeds go to Movable Feet.

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So we can't do this without thecommunity, without engaging the community helping
us to feed people, fight diseaseand foster hope. I just will hope
that if anyone is inspired and understandsthe importance of helping people at that intersection
of food and syochronic illness, thatthey know that they can do that by
connecting with us. Great and what'sthe best way for our listeners to get

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more information about Movable Feast. Bestplaces at our website doww dot mfeast dot
org. It has all the informationabout what we do and portals right there
to support Ride for the Fist.Well awesome, Well, thank you the
great talking with you and learning aboutMovable Fees and you know the impact that's

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happened on the community from I hopeyou have a great rest of your day.
Thanks for having me same to you. This has been iheartmedias CEOs you should know