My annual trek through the Fort Bragg Food Bank started with a Journey.
Journey Laird, to be exact, a gal spending her eighth month on earth.
While the previous three people I met didn”t want to be interviewed, her big eyes and smile sparkled and it seemed like she nodded when asked if she wanted to be in the newspaper.
Her mom, Destiny Laird, said she gets good food for herself and her friendly toddler.
“The Food Bank does an incredible service to this community,” Destiny said. “Without it, some people would truly be going hungry.”
Last Friday was a lucky day for mom and daughter as diapers were on the list of items being given away. The Food Bank gives away anything and everything they can to their clients, from furniture to toys to books to birdseed.
Every year, I explore the finances, organization, people and food at the Food Bank firsthand during our Season of Sharing fund drive, which runs through the end of December. The idea is for our newspaper to be able to tell you the reader and giver where your donations are going.
Likely most everybody would want to see their money go to the charming mom-daughter pair. Mom was the only one I met who gave her name for the newspaper. Feeding families with young children is what most givers I have met have in mind even the skeptics.
“The Food Bank is a fairly diversified nonprofit. Some of the others help specific groups of people. The Food Bank gets all kinds of people who need help,” said Destiny.
Rainbow of clients
But what about the rest of the clients? Those three who said no to an interview included a woman whose face is familiar to local shoppers. She didn”t want people to know she is in need now. There was a grandfather who enjoyed the books as much as the food being given away. And there was a young man hitchhiking south who was thrilled at the friendly reception and good food he got until I asked his name.
That freaked him out.
Because my nonprofit business office and warehouse is located next door to the Food Bank at the north end of Franklin Street, I have met hundreds of its clients. If I wanted to simply promote the Food Bank, I could present a heart-wrenching series of charming and compelling needy characters like Destiny and Journey. Or, if I wanted to present travelers, homeless people and even freeloaders, I could find those too.
That”s why I make a point of interviewing the first people I meet, to take the selection out of range of my biases as much as possible.
Once again, I”ll present the good, the bad, the stigmas and the prejudices. I”ll eat the food and see how nutritious, fresh, local and tasty it is.
This year we have the most accurate numbers ever from the Food Bank about who clients are, from age to race to family size to annual income.
In 2012, the Fort Bragg Food Bank distributed 1.1 million pounds of food to eligible low-income residents with about a quarter of that going through the Food Bank to other county food banks and pantries. The majority was distributed locally.
We will look at where the money comes from and where it goes. Thanks to a spiffy new 2012 annual report that details reserves and every expense, we will be able to follow each dollar. The Food Bank ended 2012 in the red with $300,397 in expenses and $282,486 in revenues.
Share your ideas
We will explore the local impacts of national programs, grants utilized, and the growing gap between rich and poor. We”ll look at how churches, nonprofits and local businesses work together or apart with the Food Bank to help the hungry.
This year, I”d like to request people to contact me with your ideas and suggestions as we go along at frankhartzell@gmail.com.
In the past, several people have read Season of Sharing stories and come down to volunteer. We encourage you the reader to do that again, and then share your experience with us. We will meet volunteers, clients, board members, employees and givers.
We want to use Season of Sharing this year to open up some important conversations, such as on nonprofit governance. Is there something at the Food Bank that can be learned by other nonprofits to help prevent catastrophes like the one that happened at MCTV or energy wasting brouhahas like happened at the Senior Center?
We will look at unique nonprofit programs, like the dog feeding and treating program offered for five years by Second Chance and a new program where Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens has brought tons of delicious produce to the Food Bank.
Season of Sharing
Since the 1996 holiday season, the Advocate-News and The Mendocino Beacon have raised roughly $301,543 for the Food Bank through the Season of Sharing fund drive. Since 1999, the nonprofit Community Foundation of Mendocino County has administered the drive as a courtesy to the newspapers, which means that every penny donated goes directly to the Food Bank.
“There are many dozens of nonprofit organizations in our area, all very worthy of support, but the Food Bank addresses the most basic problem facing hundreds of individuals and families hunger,” said Publisher Sharon DiMauro. “The goal is to give the Food Bank money it can use year-round, not just during the holidays. It doesn”t matter a bit whether a person contributes through our fundraiser or directly to the Food Bank, the main thing is to contribute and if you”re able, to give year-round.”
How to donate
? By check: Make check payable to The Community Foundation of Mendocino County (CMFC) and mail or deliver to the Advocate-News, 450 N. Franklin St., Fort Bragg 95437.
? By credit card: To pay via CFMC”s website, go to www.communityfound.org. Click “Donate Online,” then “Poverty Related Funds” and select “Season of Sharing Fund (Fort Bragg Food Bank).”
The names of donors who contribute through the newspapers or CMFC”s website will be printed each week, unless they ask to remain anonymous.
The drive runs through Dec. 31.
If you have any questions, please call us at 964-5642.
