FOOD & NUTRITION UPDATES
The new annex warehouse is being rented from Seneca Steel and is located at 35200 Hocking Drive in Logan. Seneca Steel has agreed to handle construction which is estimated to be done by the beginning of December This gives us until the end of the month to install racking, clean, and move product over from the old warehouse location. We are currently in the process of receiving TEFAP bonus food via the trade mitigation by the federal government. We are seeking sponsorships to boost our mobile food pantry so that we have an avenue for distributing the bonus to the communities that we serve. We recently hired a new Community Relations Specialist, Kali Panza, who started on November 13th. A recent graduate of Ohio University, Kali has a strong background is digital arts and personnel management. We were recently awarded a grant of $22,473.40 through People’s Bank Hunger Awareness Campaign and Hunger Solutions. This money will be used in addition to other sources to help fund a second Agency Relations position which will help alleviate the workload of our current employee as well as provide more personal care for agencies in need by delegating each specialist to a cluster of 5 counties, rather than one employee servicing all 10. The Regional Kitchen welcomes Wanda Johnson, part time Athens Dining Site Aide and Kelly Smith, full time Food Services Aide assisting with the new Afterschool Meals program. We are pleased to announce Naomi Squires will be transitioning from her current role as Senior Nutrition Operations Specialist to Food Services Coordinator effective Dec 3rd. A joint grant with Ohio Health and the Athens Health Department to send home-delivered meals to diabetic patients in Nelsonville was awarded for $2100 through the Rocky Community Improvement Fund. Ohio Health will match this for a total of $8000 for 20 patients receiving healthy meals. The grant is a pilot to explore the health outcomes for providing meals to patients recently diagnosed with diabetes for a possible long-term partnership with Ohio Health to write prescriptions for home delivered meals and use the Regional Kitchen as a vendor for those meals.
- Andrew Mayle WHAT’S HAPPENING | PAGE 6