FALL HUNGER SUMMIT BRINGS

Annual Agency Conference Back

In late September 2022, the Food Bank of North Alabama relaunched its annual Hunger Summit, a day of learning and collaboration for the over 210 partners that the Food Bank works with to distribute food across an 11-county coverage area.

The Hunger Summit had been on a brief hiatus since 2020 due to COVID. By autumn 2022 the Food Bank decided the time was right to relaunch the long-standing conference. For the first year back, the Food Bank wanted to focus on the needs of its agency partners instead of inviting the public.

The Food Bank had 68 agency representatives come from across its coverage area to hear updates from Food Bank staff, a special keynote address on child hunger and to participate in two series of learning sessions that covered topics such as advocacy, volunteer engagement, food pantry best practices, fundraising and SNAP. Learning session leaders included staff from the Food Bank of North Alabama, Feeding Alabama, agency partner panels and staff from Feeding the Gulf Coast Food Bank.

Michele Pepper, agency relations manager at the Food Bank of North Alabama, said that agencies learned a lot from the sessions, but they also learned from each other.

Chyna Smith Agency Services Representative Susan Szczepanski Special Programs Assistant Allison Parks Donor Services Assistant

“They really enjoyed sharing ideas and meeting each other,” Pepper said of the participants. “It was great to facilitate those connections between agency partners. During the best practices session, we had agency partners share their experiences and the other agency representatives were very engaged over both similar and diverse experiences. They saw where they are different and how they do things similarly.”

Nearly 90 percent of the over 11 million pounds of food the Food Bank distributes makes its way to people struggling with food insecurity via its network of 210 agency partners, which include organizations such as Manna House, the Salvation Army and Downtown Rescue Mission.

“Our agencies really took away that they are part of a larger group that is working across our coverage area to serve the communities in need,” Pepper said.

As part of his keynote address, Dr. Brandon Renfroe a teacher at Geraldine High School, said that there is a teacher at his school who works closely with the Hispanic community in their area, and sometimes takes them extra food to a trailer park to share with her students.

“The first time she went with boxes from the Food Bank, families raced to her car, thinking they had to be first to her car—or else the food would be gone,” he said. “But our teacher told them that things had changed now—that the Food Bank of North Alabama was helping us now—and that they would be able to receive food on a consistent basis.

“With tears in her eyes, our secretary said, ‘You tell them about that—and you tell them that we said, ‘thank you’ ’ —and indeed, we are thankful.”