Hannaford Helps Impact Stories 2022

2022 Impact Stories

AS TOLD BY NONPROFITS

of the Hannaford Helps Reusable Bag Program

INSPIRING AND IMPORTANT WORK

Since late 2021, the PS It Matters Nonprofit Engagement Team has conducted interviews with over 70 nonprofits that have benefited from Bags 4 My Cause or Bloomin’ 4 Good. The resulting Impact Stories highlight each nonprofit’s mission, services they provide and the needs they fill. Learning from these organizations firsthand is inspiring and emphasizes the importance of the Reusable Bag and Bloomin’ 4 Good Programs and impact on the local Hannaford community.

Enclosed are four stories of nonprofits that have benefited from the Hannaford Helps Reusable Bag Program. More stories can be found on the Program Website: hannaford.2givelocal.com/stories

In 2023, the Nonprofit Engagement Team will continue conversations with nonprofits creating additional Impact Stories—at least one a month—and feedback calls with 200 to 300 organizations. These calls will focus on how nonprofits interact with the program, the marketing tools they use, additional tools they would like to see on the Program Website and how the Reusable Bag and Bloomin’ 4 Good Programs fit into their overall fundraising strategy. We plan to adjust our outreach to nonprofits based on feedback and report overall findings in early 2024.

We look forward to continuing the success of the Hannaford Helps Reusable Bag and Bloomin’ 4 Good Programs in 2023. We truly value your partnership and the impact we have together on local nonprofits in your banner’s footprint. Thank you for contributing to the positive outcomes for Hannaford, PS It Matters and the local community!

Fighting food insecurity for children.

REGIONAL FOOD BANK OF NORTHEASTERN NY BACKPACK PROGRAM

The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern NY has seen exponential growth in demand since first opening its doors in 1982. Today, the Food Bank provides over 55 million pounds of food a year to 1,000 agencies. Through its Reusable Bag Program, Hannaford has supported the BackPack Program.

Tell us about the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern NY

The mission of the Regional Food Bank is to alleviate hunger and prevent food waste. We work toward this mission by ensuring that all products available for donation reach the Food Bank and are distributed judiciously to our member agencies; by practicing responsible stewardship; and by actively participating in the community to increase awareness of hunger and poverty.

The Regional Food Bank was created by a group of food pantry coordinators and anti-hunger advocates in June 1982. The Food Bank operated for seven years in a commercial storage warehouse, and in 1989 moved into a newly constructed 21,000 square-foot warehouse.

We outgrew this facility in less than four years and moved the operation to a modern 42,000 square-foot warehouse in 1993. In 2017, the Food Bank completed a major renovation project to significantly expand its warehouse storage space in an effort to meet the ever-growing requests for food assistance. The Food Bank now has a 70,000 square-foot building to accommodate donations.

From Plattsburgh to Newburgh, in urban, rural, and suburban communities, the Food Bank provides over 55 million pounds of food a year to 1,000 agencies.

What services you are supplying to your community?

The Regional Food Bank provides massive quantities of food every year to help feed hungry people in 23 counties of eastern New York. It also responds in a major way to assist people with food assistance during disasters. It is the only not-for-profit organization in the region that can work to alleviate food insecurity on such a wide scale.

We partner with 1,000 agencies serving the hungry throughout our service area as well as provide direct service to individuals through our BackPack and School Pantry Programs, Senior Food Delivery Program, and Drive-Thru Pantry Programs.

Although free and reduced breakfast and lunch programs provide significant nutritional benefits to students during the school day, many disadvantaged children do not have access to regular meals when school is not in session. The

BackPack Program helps alleviate child hunger by discreetly providing hungry children with backpacks full of nutritious and easy-to-prepare food on Friday afternoons so they have food to eat throughout the weekend. The BackPack Program serves nearly 7,000 students in 241 schools across 22 counties.

Tell us a story that illustrates the good work you are doing.

Jacob, a first grader at a local school, displays anxiety around food: rushing the lunch line, gobbling up the food and asking for more, and asking his classmates for their uneaten leftovers. At the end of the week, his anxiety grows; school meals aren’t available on the weekends and what will he eat until school breakfast on Monday morning?

His teacher, seeing the need, enrolls Jacob in the BackPack Program. Now, on Friday afternoon, Jacob gets a bag filled with food that he can eat throughout the weekend; childhood classics like oatmeal, cereal, mac and cheese, PB&J, and pasta and sauce. He is now confident that he will have food to eat all weekend, and can return to school on Monday ready to learn. Jacob knows that the school and the community care about him and want to help him to reach his potential, and this food will help him and his family get through tough times.

What is your greatest achievement or contribution to the community?

We are most proud of our response to our neighbors in need resulting from the COVID crisis. Our staff

worked throughout the pandemic to deliver fresh, nutritious food to those who are hungry in our region. We delivered 55.8 million pounds of food which equates to 46.5 million meals. This represents a 40% increase in volume. We found new partners to work with and developed new ways to get the food to those affected by the pandemic including direct delivery to seniors, expanded School Pantry and BackPack Programs, drive-thru food distribution and enhanced delivery of New York State produce and dairy. We never shut down. We never missed a day. We worked together through the height of the crisis and continue to work with those affected by the pandemic and affected by the resulting economic difficulties.

What do you want people to know about Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York?

First, that we have the most dedicated and hardworking employees who are committed to always being there to provide nutritious food to our neighbors in need. Second, our organization relies primarily on philanthropy to provide food to the hungry ($10-12 million per year). And, third, we work with amazing partners including food pantries, soup kitchens, schools and senior centers as well as 16,000 volunteers to achieve our mission.

The BackPack Program serves nearly 7,000 students in 241 schools across 22 counties.

How will you use the funds raised from the Hannaford Fight Hunger Bag Program?

Funds raised from these programs go toward our BackPack Program, which provides children in need with backpacks full of nutritious and easy-to-prepare food on Friday afternoons so they have food to eat throughout the weekend when school is not in session. More than 6,500 children each year are helped through the BackPack Program.

He is now confident that he will have food to eat all weekend, and can return to school on Monday ready to learn.

Is there anything you’d like to add?

We are extremely grateful to Hannaford and their customers for supporting the Food Bank’s mission through these programs! If you are interested in learning more about the Food Bank, please visit our website at regionalfoodbank.net.

Molly Nicol is Chief Executive Officer of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern NY. She joined the organization in 2021.

Home is where the heart is.

MY PLACE TEEN CENTER

Grit. It’s what defines My Place Teen Center as an organization and where Donna

Dwyer and her team focus with the kids who come to this after-school oasis.

Hannaford has supported My Place Teen Center through the Reusable Bag Program.

Tell us about My Place Teen Center.

Opened in 1998, My Place Teen Center provides an after-school oasis offering year-round, free, positive youth development programming specializing in cultivating grit and alleviating hunger and trauma.

We are at the forefront of some of the most crucial issues of our time. We fight to keep kids safe from the devastation of the opioid epidemic; we combat poverty and food insecurity and we create authentic communities with kids from diverse backgrounds, teaching them to be good citizens and neighbors. Young people attending MPTC will have the academic, job readiness, and life skills necessary to lead independent adult lives filled with stewardship, courage, passion, and joy.

People we have met say to us on a regular basis, every city and town needs a My Place Teen Center.

What sets your organization apart from others in your community?

Local control and local decision making are certainly one thing. We always have the kids foremost on our minds, and it is true that there’s something to be said that the more control and the more ability you have to impact change without sending it up the flagpole continually, the faster and the nimbler you can be in making immediate decisions, sometimes crisis-related decisions. There are a lot of benefits to be affiliated with a national charter, but we feel it’s a benefit that we can be quick; we can be nimble; we don’t have a cookie cutter program, so we are able to meet the kids exactly where they are and can be responsive to the ebb and flow of the community. In fact, during the pandemic, and within 48 hours from March 13 to March 16, from the Friday to the Monday, we decided we’re going to become a mobile food pantry. Fast decision-making. Responsive results.

Like most nonprofits, My Place Teen Center was created out of a need and in 1996 that need was youth suicide and the results of a drug and alcohol survey across the community. It was very alarming, and a small group of community members said that we need to do something about this. They started meeting and talked about how they could start a teen center for kids after school and during the summer months. Two years later, with lots of grassroots effort and elbow grease, they made this wonderful idea happen. That’s how the red doors opened.

Another thing is grit. Grit is what we focus on, but now more than ever in every aspect of our lives, collectively as a community, and certainly with kids who come from high risk, adverse childhood experiences, poverty, substance use and abuse, grit, in my opinion, and research speaks to this as well, is the number one factor. In the success indicators, you can be sharp as a tack, you can have a high IQ and you can come from affluent circumstances or easier circumstances. But if you don’t have grit within your character, if you don’t have the stubbornness, the resilience to keep on plugging, to be pleasantly persistent, then your success indicators really take a nosedive.

People we have met say to us on a regular basis, every city and town needs a My Place Teen Center.

And so, grit is absolutely where we’re focusing with the kids. We know with 100% certainty that 95% of our kids come from really traumatizing backgrounds. Do you think that just academics is really going to get them far? Or do you think that it’s learning the grit to survive the weekend, the grit to find where the food is, the grit to be able to say that I want more in my life?

Even the teen center itself models what we want for the kids. We could have shut down in March 2020 and we would not have been chastised for shutting down. But we figured out that we have a kitchen, we have a cook, and we knew food was going to be a huge issue immediately. And so that’s the definition of grit as an organization. It allowed us to say find a way, there’s always a way, so find it.

Tell us a story that illustrates the good work you are doing.

Jake and Molly are twins that have been coming to us for about four years now. They come from a great family. Jake and Molly came here every day after school and then ate their dinner here because their parents were at work and their parents wanted them to be safe. Now they both have jobs. Molly works at a restaurant because she went through our restaurant training program here. The benefits to coming here after school versus going home and sitting on their laptop or iPhone are really great. They did something with their time here; they participated in our job skills programming, and it’s made a difference for them. A teen center like ours is so important in communities because they had a place to go to after school.

What is your greatest achievement or contribution to the community?

Within 48 hours, from March 13 to March 16, 2020, we pivoted from our mission to meet the surging and urgent demand for food and home care with Plan B. Six staff members prepared and delivered over 1,250 homemade, restaurant-quality dinners and 200+ snack/hygiene/ household staples kits per week for nine months. We became a daily, mobile food pantry for 250 persons per day. We served anyone—kids, the elderly, people without transportation, people with disabilities, people who were immuno-compromised, those who experienced a significant loss of income, etc.—without qualification— via our mobile food pantry and curbside pick-up—any age, from anywhere. We also handed out $7,425 in gift cards from Hannaford/Walmart/Target.

When you are at your weakest, you’re actually at your strongest because you still find a way to survive and then eventually thrive.

We are proud that we were able to not let our fears and anxiety hold us down and that we had the courage to say, “We can help. We know what to do, and we’re going to do it.” And we just did. We are proud of our work ethic and our ability to have impact on our community.

What do you want people to know about your organization?

First, we provide food—daily meals and snacks. Second, we are a teen oasis. And third, we instill GRIT via character development, academic support, health, wellness, mentoring, civic engagement, and life skills. The grit of a kid’s heart and will is IT. #tinySTRONG

And to me, #tinySTRONG represents when you’re at your absolute lowest, and all around you the walls are closing in with despair and grief, but yet you still get up. You still find some way to go forward. When you are at your weakest, you’re actually at your strongest because you still find a way to survive and then eventually thrive.

How did you hear about the Hannaford Helps Reusable Bag Program?

I was told about these programs by Cheryl Hinkson, Director of Operations for Hannaford and also on our Board, Hannaford Store Manager Doug Mercier and my dad Donald Pederzini. After a career with Gulf Oil, in his first retirement he was a realtor for 25 years, and then in his second, he bagged at the Buxton Store. And at the age of 77 he would often say to me, “I want to help the elderly with their groceries.”

How will you use the funds raised from this Program?

Always for our meal programs.

Is there anything you would like to add?

We awarded Hannaford our MVP of the Year award in 2020:

Our MVP of the Year award honors Hannaford. A hero locally. A hero nationally. Stepping up, and in, is clearly in your business DNA. Kudos for caring about your community, no matter the zip code, and demonstrating all heart. Congratulations!

My experience is that Hannaford is always thinking of their community neighbor, on the local level as well as the corporate level. Whether it’s giving out a deli platter, or cookies, or donating $5 or $50,000. For example, in 2013 Hannaford saved our decrepit roof from falling in when no one else would!

And Hannaford has a model where they don’t waste the food and they deliver it to food pantries and statewide. And across the Eastern seaboard where they’re involved, they have a wonderful reclamation program where they’re making sure the food doesn’t go to waste.

Hannaford is my gold star corporate entity that we just love to partner with.

Executive Director Donna Dwyer has been described as “a fireball that can’t be put out.” She’s been lighting up My Place Teen Center since 2011.

Promoting humane values.

P.A.W.S. ANIMAL ADOPTION CENTER

Executive Director Shelly Butler underscores that P.A.W.S. Animal Adoption Center is a social-service based animal shelter, rather than simply a shelter for stray animals. Hannaford has supported

P.A.W.S. Animal Adoption Center through its Reusable Bag Program.

Tell us about P.A.W.S. Animal Adoption Center.

Our mission is to provide care for homeless dogs and cats until they can be placed in permanent, responsible homes while promoting humane values in our community through outreach and educational programs.

It all started in 1974, when a Midcoast Maine resident found a stray dog in his neighborhood. He decided to take him in and named him Finnegan. From there more and more homeless animals turned up in need of homes, and the gentleman enlisted the help of his friends. Soon, Camden-Rockport Animal Rescue League (now PAWS Animal Adoption Center) was formed, and Finnegan’s legacy would go on to inspire the saving of thousands of lives.

We serve 12 coastal communities right here in the Midcoastal area of Maine with Camden right in the middle.

New Hope Midcoast—Domestic Violence Agency, Coastal Healthcare Alliance (Penbay & Waldo County Hospitals), Knox County Homeless Coalition, Meals on Wheels, Waldo County Humane Society, Waldo County Pet Food Pantry, Penquis Social Service Agency and Knox County Health Coalition.

What sets your organization apart from others in your community?

I think the one thing that we do that nobody else around us does in our general area is that we provide supportive services for many of our other social service agencies and their clients. For example, right now we are sheltering in place some cats from a domestic violence victim who is in hiding. She didn’t want to have to give up her cats. So, we are sheltering the cats and we’ll give them free medical care and we’ll hold them here until she can get to a safe place.

What services do you provide to the community?

We offer a wide array of services including cat and dog adoptions, owner surrenders, pet re-homing assistance, wellness & vaccination clinics, affordable spay/neuter, pet food & supply pantry.

We also offer boarding and affordable medical care to partner agency clients. These partner agencies include

We’ve done a lot of that during COVID. We must’ve done 30 or 40 animals from domestic violence shelters, and then we also do the same thing for the homeless coalition, people who are in between homes that don’t want to have to give up their animals just because they don’t have a place to reside.

We help out anybody who finds themselves in one of our hospitals and doesn’t have pet care. We receive phone calls from social workers because patients need to have a medical procedures and their pets have nowhere to go while the owners are in the hospital. We bring in those animals so they can be returned to their owners when they get out of the hospital. I think our supportive services are one of the most important things that we do.

We provide supportive services for many of our other social service agencies and their clients.

We are a social service-based animal shelter, as opposed to just a stray animal shelter. Who we are here to cater to depends on need as well as pet owners, whatever a pet owner may need. So that’s a wonderful differentiator too. Of course, we have animals for adoption that have found themselves in our animal shelter by way of being homeless, abandoned or neglected, and we also bring up dogs from high kill shelters in the south. And then we work with other service providers to do spay and neuter procedures. We have a full-service animal hospital here in the shelter and do all of our own medical care in-house. We do low-income spay and neuter procedures and wellness clinics for the general public.

Tell us a story that illustrates the good work you are doing.

Late on a Friday evening, I received a call at home asking for help. Michelle was a 1 1/2-year-old lab who had eaten a rock, was in extreme distress and in urgent need of surgery. As it turned out, this was Michelle’s second trip to the emergency clinic this year and financially, it was just too much for her owners to manage. Their options were limited – a very expensive surgery or euthanasia. Michelle’s future looked bleak. Thanks to the Second Chance Fund we were able to welcome Michelle to P.A.W.S. and save her life. She had the surgery and is now living well in her adoptive home.

Kellie, a young cat, was brought to P.A.W.S. in a coma and appeared to be going through the end stages of life. She was jaundiced, lifeless and in liver failure. For weeks, our staff and volunteers cared for her. All she needed was a kind touch, necessary medical care and

the motivation to eat. Did you know, that after a few days of not eating, cats actually forget that they need to eat? Today, Kellie is healthy, fun-loving and living large in her adoptive home.

What is your greatest contribution to the community?

Being able to offer affordable spay/neuter to pet owners in need and offering supportive services to clients of our social service partners so they do not have to surrender their pets to the shelter when they find themselves in a challenging situation.

How did you hear about the Hannaford Helps Reusable Bag Program?

Hannaford reached out to us to tell us about the program. P.A.W.S. is humbled by the number of initiatives that Hannaford offers to assist nonprofits in our area and we consider Hannaford to be a very generous partner and one that we are thankful for.

How will you use the funds raised from this Hannaford Program?

All funds raised though the Hannaford initiatives will go directly to support the care of the animals in the shelter.

What are the most important things you want people to know?

First, we help over 1,000 animals every year and the need continues to increase. Second, we are here to help our community of pet owners with services and supplies when they need us. And third, we work with local social service agencies to provide a safe place for animals when their owners are in a difficult place, such as hospitalized, homeless or in hiding due to domestic violence.

Executive Director of P.A.W.S. Animal Adoption Center,

Shelly Butler,

is most proud of the agency’s ability to offer affordable spay/neuter services to pet owners in need and offering supportive services to clients of social service partners.

We help over 1,000 animals every year and the need continues to increase.

Committed to the community.

BRUNSWICK CARES COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY

The name of this nonprofit says it all. Caring about the community is what they do, and they do it with thoughtfulness, collaboration and a deep sense of commitment. Hannaford has supported Brunswick Cares Community Food Pantry through the Reusable Bag Program.

Tell us about Brunswick Cares Community Food Pantry.

Brunswick Cares Community Food Pantry provides supplemental food assistance to individuals and families within the Brunswick community and surrounding neighborhoods. We have partnerships with other pantries in the area, so our support tends to cover a five- to ten-mile radius. However, we support whoever comes through our doors, understanding that rural areas surrounding us have pantries with hours that won’t always accommodate everyone. Brunswick Cares is open twice a week, Tuesdays from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm and Saturdays from 9:00 am to 11:00 am, and is located at 42 White Church Lane, Troy, New York (off State Route 351 in Brunswick). We work with area schools and other referral organizations to reach as many as possible.

come to us must simply provide proof of identity and that they reside in the area. Individuals and families can come to the pantry once every four weeks, in which we provide them three meals for three days for each member of the family. Essentially each person in a family will get nine meals. People can also come every week for a partial order, which contains milk, bread, eggs and whatever fresh produce we have that week.

Brunswick Cares Community Food Pantry works with local students on volunteer and vocational programs. One group of students assisted with packing our summer meal bags, developing vocational skills in the process.

Besides food bags, we provide birthday party bags to families in our community. When a family is food insecure and struggles to provide groceries for their family, something like a birthday party for their child isn’t a priority. The birthday party bags allow families to have a party. The bags include the cake, the frosting, decorations and simple party favors. Our pantry works with a local middle school service club for this program; we provide all the materials, and they assemble the bags.

The pantry started with a few members of the Brunswick Church congregation because they saw a need. It began small with donations, and we established ourselves in six months. Once we set the hours of twice a week, we have maintained that through thick and thin; our community is committed to helping our neighbors.

What services do you supply to the community?

The pantry provides supplemental food assistance to community members, no questions asked. People who

What sets you apart from other nonprofits in your community?

Along with regular groceries, we offer our MOM, Meal of the Month. It is something unique we do for our community and that folks can get with their food order. It’s a bag with a recipe and most ingredients to make that meal. We have been running the MOM program for over five years now, and it started as a simple way to get any surplus stock we may have out to people in need. Often, we’ll have inventory we need to move, such as pasta

The pantry provides supplemental food assistance to community members, no questions asked.

or beans, or we may have been able to get food items that can benefit others.

One of our volunteers will look up recipes that use these ingredients, and then we will put the MOM bags together. The meals are usually simple crockpot or one-pot meals that are very well-received by our guests. With everything else they have going on, at least one night, they can pull out their MOM bag to make dinner, and the meals usually serve six to eight people.

This program is so well received that almost all our guests select the MOM bag when they pick up their full orders. Many guests say, “I never thought of doing that with these ingredients.” Brunswick Cares Community Food Pantry sees this as a great way to show our guests different, healthy and unique ways to use food while helping to feed the food insecure.

Tell us a story that illustrates the good work of your organization.

The best stories are when we get a phone call from one of the local schools because they have a new family that needs our assistance. We will bring over not just the regular grocery order but also personal hygiene and household supplies. The families are often amazed with what they get and now know there is hope. Many people come in because they’ve lost their job, additional family members have moved in or something else has happened that affects them adversely. They never thought they would end up at a food pantry.

A wonderful moment happened last year when we were offering school gift cards. We gave one to a grandmother taking care of her grandchildren. She was so

overwhelmed with gratitude that she started to cry. She had to sit down in a chair; knowing there were resources in the community to help overwhelmed her with hope. Families like this one who need short-term assistance come to our pantry all the time, and once they are back on their feet, they often want to volunteer. It is communities helping communities, and it is a beautiful thing to witness.

What is your most outstanding contribution to the community?

Because we are associated with the church, we try to administer to many of the ministries we believe in. One

of our board members coordinates a team of volunteers that picks up bread from a local outlet every week. They bring the bread to our pantry and at least seven other pantries in the area. A simple thing like bread to make a sandwich benefits those we serve so much. One of the things that we’re proud of is how we try to always work with others.

The local pantries and schools we partner with mean so much to the Brunswick Cares Community Food Pantry. Schools have regularly provided donation drives in support of our pantry. We also help students with learning about community service. All this collaboration and teamwork allows the pantry to continue and thrive.

come. We’re here to provide the food assistance to help you through whatever circumstances you find yourself in.

How will you use the funds raised from this Hannaford Program?

These funds are used to help supplement meals and grocery bags. Having resources like the Hannaford Fights Hunger program assists us in making sure we provide well-rounded and balanced food bags to our guests. With these funds, we can go to Hannaford to purchase all the necessary items to balance and fill our food bags.

When we do the MOM bag, sometimes the recipe requires a particular spice or something else. The volunteer shoppers use the funds we receive from the Hannaford Fights Hunger Program to actually go back to Hannaford and purchase additional food to provide for our guests. It becomes a beautiful full-circle process that we are so grateful to have to support our cause.

Is there anything you would like to add?

What do you want people to know about your organization?

We’re here no matter what someone’s circumstances are in life, whether you’re unemployed or underemployed or simply don’t have enough resources to buy food. Frequently folks may find their paycheck or other income source may not be enough. So, you can come to us once every week or once a month. We provide more than just food items. The pantry carries personal hygiene items such as soap, toothpaste and paper towels.

One thing we want people to know is that, unlike other state and federal programs, we don’t ask for proof of in-

If people are interested in finding out more about food assistance, how to volunteer or how to donate, please visit the Brunswick Cares Food Pantry website brunswickcares.org or Facebook page www.facebook.com/ brunswickcarescommunityfoodpantry.

It is communities helping communities, and it is a beautiful thing to witness.

Jeannie Scott serves on the Board of Brunswick Cares Community Food Pantry.