BETTY JEAN BROWN FOUNDATION

Our short-term goal is to expand to over 20 sites in our home state of New York. Over the next five years, our goal is to develop to over 1000 sites in 10 states.

To accomplish our short-term goal, Betty Jean Brown Foundation is seeking an investment of $350,000. At each site, 760 individuals will benefit from the program. This funding will supplement our current fund-raising efforts, which include individual & local business donations & sponsorships. This additional investment will allow us to:

Hire appropriate staff: Executive Director & a Coordinator
Funds for office space rental and for computer, telephone & online technology
Conduct business & organizational planning to support our short-term expansion goal
Develop a structured approach to grant-writing to tap into available funding streams
Identify & build social media strategy: to promote awareness, community engagement & fundraising

Betty Jean Brown Foundation has an experienced Board of Directors team that has hands-on experience in the community, school, medical & business fields. With guidance from our Board and your funding support, we aim to fulfill our short-term goal noted above and positively influence the lives of our target audience.

The chairman has worked with food banks in California and New York and has formed many connections with those working in food insecurity. The founder has been instrumental in conducting research such as Feeding America’s Hunger Study in 2014. This study researched best practices in executing hunger programs in the United States. The chairman has also completed a dissertation, which examined the experiences of after-school program managers who ran hunger relief programs as part of their after-school programs. This study highlighted the importance of food insecurity programs in the school environment, the health benefits of such programs, and the importance that food assistance programs have in improving the cultures of school environments.

We have volunteers who are experts in copywriting, multimedia communications, website design, research, and the arts. These volunteers lend their considerable time and talents to relieve hunger in our community.

We have partnered with the New York Common Pantry to deliver fresh fruits and vegetables: This partnership started in 2021 and is expected to continue indefinitely. The New York Common Pantry - donates fresh fruits and vegetables for distribution.
We have delivered produce to four programs in Harlem, New York City once every two weeks. This is an ongoing program.
Union Settlement
City Year
The Home for Little Wanderers
Center for Educational Innovation

To date, the program has served approximately 220 students in the East Harlem neighborhood. The produce is delivered every two weeks to the students, and it benefits approximately 500 individuals per month, including the families of the children receiving produce. Benefits of this program include fewer instances of childhood obesity and diabetes, better grades in school, reduced behavioral issues, leadership and volunteer activities for students and parents who bag the produce, and exposure to fruits and vegetables that the students would otherwise not have.

Currently, only 8.5% of high school students nationwide meet the daily fruit consumption recommendation and only 2.1% meet the daily vegetable consumption recommendation. 27% of young children do not consume a single serving of vegetables on a given day, according to the latest findings from the landmark Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (FITS). Betty Jean Brown Foundation’s mission for the last 20 years is to bridge this inequity by providing 3-5lbs of fresh produce to children in underserved communities on a bi-weekly basis, in the school environment.

Furthermore, we plan to add additional program success metrics that measure the consumption of fresh produce pre & post-program and nutritional education for the students
Our short-term goal is to expand to over 20 sites in our home state of New York. Over the next five years, our goal is to develop over 1000 sites in 10 states.