Additional Programs Nutrition Initiatives
Food Bank Kitchen
Gone are the days of food banks only serving canned, nonperishable items. We place heavy value on nutrition, and a crucial element to good nutrition is fresh foods. Through our Fresh Produce Initiative, we have worked with hundreds of food donors to increase the nutritional value of the food we distribute. This past year, the Food Bank distributed 12.4 million pounds of produce.
Our kitchen prepares complete meals for organizations, such as hot meal programs, that lack the resources or staff to prepare meals at their own facilities. Our staff worked throughout FY2013 to ensure that the meals we distribute are as nutritious as possible. Several changes were made to our menus such as: switching our gravies and sauces to low sodium, which dramatically reduces the amount of sodium in our senior and kids prepared meals; adding more variety of vegetables; eliminating much of our red meat by substituting with ground turkey or chicken products to reduce the amount of saturated fats and cholesterol in our meals; serving a piece of fresh fruit with every meal; limiting our desserts to 200 calories per serving; and encouraging all of our sites to include water at all of their meals instead of soda or high caloric beverages. On average, we distribute over 7,000 meals per day through the Kitchen.
Overall, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank distributed 36.6 million pounds of nutritious food in our six-county service area that includes Cuyahoga, Lake Geauga, Ashtabula, Richland and Ashland counties. This increase would not have been possible without the strong support of our food donors—including farmers, retailers, grocers, manufacturers, the State of Ohio, the United States Department of Agriculture and generous organizations.
Mobile Pantry Program
Educational Programs
The primary means of providing fresh food to communities is through our Mobile Pantry Program. On a predetermined date and time, a Food Bank truck delivers a load (10,00012,000 pounds) of produce and other perishable and non-perishable items to an easily accessible community site.
Our Agency Academy brings together community partners to provide educational and health-related programming to our member agencies to help increase the capacity of hunger center volunteers and staff to serve their clients. In FY2013, we offered 16 nutrition-related courses.
Distributions take place in a variety of settings: church parking lots, Food Bank member agencies, community centers, and even at the Food Bank. With the help of volunteers, clients receive bags of nutritious fresh produce and other items. We distributed just over 8.4 million pounds of food through 755 mobile distributions last year!
We will offer more of these courses in the upcoming year to help educate our agencies and encourage them to take the nutritious foods we have available on our menu. The Food Bank hired a nutrition manager to help increase agency and client knowledge about nutrition by conducting cooking demos and meal planning.
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