Houston Food Bank

Houston Food Bank has identified the following strategic goals:

Strategic Goal One: Maximize the Engine; applying our logistics capabilities along lines where we have leverage to bring the most value to the community.
Strategic Goal Two: Integrate the Food for Change model across the organization; using food as a catalyst with education, economic mobility and health partners to help individuals improve their quality of life.
Strategic Goal Three: Greater Houston Data Trust; supporting the creation of a system that will allow service providers to share and integrate their data and provide individuals, service agencies, and funders with the information they need to improve the well-being of Houston-area residents.
Strategic Goal Four: Advocacy for social change and sustainability; advocate to improve public policy and make food accessible so people can live better lives. Engage the community in dialogue about how we can end the need for food banks.

The Houston Food Bank focuses on filling gaps on the plate, rather than trying to distribute all food and nutrition needed for each meal (sometimes referred to as “whole plate”). Our goal is to provide ongoing supplemental food assistance with products that will have the greatest nutritional impact and reduce food purchasing costs for the recipient. We aim to use the resources donated to us to distribute the highest nutritional and dollar value food (and non-food) we can for people receiving food assistance, in order to reduce the financial burden of needing to purchase all of these items for their families. This method of providing supplemental food is made even more impactful because most people who require food assistance do not simply need three full meals for today and tomorrow, but rather they will need help making ends meet for a longer period of time.

In addition to Houston Food Bank's engaged board of directors, experienced executive team and diverse funding stream, the following affiliations and partnerships help allow HFB to work towards its goals:

HFB is a member of Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief charity. Feeding America’s mission is to feed America’s hungry through a nationwide network of approximately 200 member food banks. This network allows for open communication of ideas and best practices in food banking optimizing each organization’s effectiveness. Feeding America hosts department-specific conferences each year for its members, encouraging new ideas and successes to spread across the network. On the state-level, HFB is also a member of the Texas Food Bank Network (TFBN). TFBN unites the 19 Feeding America-affiliated food banks that operate in Texas and facilitates cooperation between food banks themselves as well as food banks and statewide resources.

Other Partnerships
HFB Partner Agencies: Almost 500 hunger-relief partner agencies throughout the service area, including:
• Food pantries
• Shelters for the homeless and survivors of domestic violence
• Nutrition sites for children and the elderly

Houston Habitat for Humanity: Food is provided to families living in newly-constructed (Houston) Habitat for Humanity homes so that home owners can begin life in their new homes with a full pantry.

Rescue Bank: Donated pet food is provided to the Rescue Bank; they in turn provide the pet food to animal rescue and rehabilitation groups.

Harris County Community Supervision and Corrections Department (HCCSCD): HCCSCD acts as the referral source for probationer clients in the Serving for Success (SFS) program; these clients are credited community service hours while participating in the program. SFS trains clients of the criminal justice system for living wage jobs in warehouse skills and/or culinary arts while they volunteer at HFB.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) offers non-violent offenders the opportunity to participate in the Serving for Success (SFS) program; these clients have the opportunity to earn early release for the community service hours provided to HFB. SFS trains clients of the criminal justice system for living wage jobs in warehouse skills and/or culinary arts while they volunteer at HFB.

Brighter Bites: Brighter Bites empowers underserved families to choose “brighter” fruits and vegetables by providing fresh produce and nutrition education for greater health.

Good Steward Global Initiative: Good Steward Global Initiative is building libraries in developing countries. Good Steward collects, sorts, and arranges transport of books to East Africa in order to build school and community libraries.

Texas Hunger Initiative (THI): THI is a capacity-building and collaborative project seeking to develop and implement strategies to end hunger through policy, education, community organizing, and community development.

The core focus of Houston Food Bank is to distribute food in the community.

Other progress toward strategic goals:

Building agency capacity
HFB utilizes agency grants to improve infrastructure and capacity--including providing funding for cooler and freezer space allowing agencies to provide more nutritious meals and safely store produce and meat. In addition, by using food allocation to encourage agencies to remain open extended hours, HFB promotes agencies to serve more of the population, including working individuals.

Growth in fresh produce
Providing fresh, nutritious food for families and individuals in need is an essential component in Houston Food Bank's strategy for fighting hunger. Last year, 35% of the food distributed by HFB was fresh produce – more than 28 million pounds. Through the Food Bank’s Mobile Pantry program, 11,000 pounds of food (two-thirds of which is produce) is collected and driven to a designated site located within a food desert or an area of greatest need. At the site, Food Bank staff offloads the truck and distributes the food to underserved people in that community. Through the Food Fair program, 11,000 pounds of food (over 90% of which is produce) is delivered to hunger-relief agencies to separate and provide for their clients.

Allocation for Change Committee and strategic partnerships
The Allocation for Change Committee began meeting in October 2012. The committee is compiled of 12 members, including a mixture of board members, volunteers and involved community members. The goal of the committee is to develop policies for allocation to support HFB’s Board Goal: To use food as a catalyst for additional social services. The committee identifies, prioritizes, and assists agencies and initiatives to leverage HFB resources. This will help better lives in the potential areas of education, health, counseling, job training and social services. The committee will determine how to make targeted allocation decisions, identify and contact potential partners and establish measurements. Once this is complete, the committee will identify and create some small near terms successes. To this date, the committee has reached out to eight potential partners and is currently working on determining the most effective method to implement the allocation program. One example of a successful relationship is with Southwest Schools (SWS). HFB has currently distributed 8,620 pounds of school supplies to SWS, who previously purchased the supplies. With the resources HFB has provided, SWS anticipates they will save enough money to be able to introduce a new program to the school district. The partnership with SWS is a prime example of the future work of the committee; HFB is adding more value to distributions by linking distributions to programs proven to help clients break the cycle of poverty.