north texas food bank

I get to learn about a lot of great local initiatives when I make visits around the country.  On a recent trip to Dallas, I visited Metrocrest Social Services, a community resource agency in Farmers Branch, Texas, that provides services to families in crisis and helps them make plans for the future. The purpose of the visit was to learn how outreach workers from the North Texas Food Bank come to this office to assist clients submit applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Camilla Zimbal, social services director, gave me a tour of the agency, and showed me some of the other services available to clients. One of the highlights of this one-stop shop is a food pantry at which pantry clients may select groceries once a week. In addition to the canned and boxed food, they can also select fresh-from-the-garden fruit and vegetables.

We left the cool warehouse with sticky shoes and smelling of spoiled bananas, but also with a warm feeling for having helped the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas ensure healthy, fresh food for their clients. Hundreds of cases of bananas had been donated, but when food bank staff checked the produce it was too spoiled to be used.  However, the sturdy produce boxes could be salvaged for further use, so 32 USDA volunteers from the Food and Nutrition Service Southwest Regional Office and USDA Risk Management Agency rolled up their sleeves to empty and then reassemble the boxes.  This was a great opportunity for us to work together with other USDA employees and see the food bank in operation first hand. The project was part of the January 12^th USDA National Day of Service honoring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

As an employee of the Food & Nutrition Service, I see firsthand the war that is waged on hunger every single day. The number of families across the country that are food insecure is cause for concern, but we are working daily to reduce those numbers. And it’s working. Starting with generous donations of food and funds supplied through numerous federal feeding programs, people nationwide are privy to not just any food, but healthy, nutritious food.

And it happens on the local level as well. In the Southwest Region of the United States, there are local partners fighting hunger in fresh and innovative ways, seeing to it that the graciously donated food items make it to as many families in need as possible.