Aspiring To Be Better Through Innovation

While I don’t typically make New Year’s resolutions, I do try to focus on my aspirations for the year – broader objectives that I hope to work toward.

At the Food Bank, we have an ongoing aspiration: to always try and do better. Yes, it’s simple, but it also reflects our efforts to examine and re-examine how we do things, and how we can better serve our neighbors.

Last year, we worked hard on this aspiration, and one way we did it was through a focus on innovation.

We launched a new senior feeding program that has served our neighbors with more variety and better nutritious options to meet health needs. The result is a waiting list of senior communities that want to be a part of the program.

We developed a new approach to our Summer Meals program that reaches children when they are out of school and don’t have access to free and reduced-cost meals. The impact of the new program not only increased satisfaction among children, but it also got them to try new things.
Additionally, we significantly increased healthy produce in our communities by partnering with local farmers on fresh approaches that pushed our farm-to-neighbor delivery.

We’ve also taken on the challenge of finding innovative, collaborative ways to better serve some of our toughest food deserts in South Jersey. We want to transform food access and think more comprehensively with community partners on how to co-locate community resources.
Of course, not everything will always be successful. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the full effort.

In doing this work, with the end goal of being better and providing better service to our neighbors, we will examine our data and analyze the important numbers. But it’s the stories that I hear – from our pantries, Health and Wellness educators, and SNAP Navigators – that ensure our impact always aspires to go beyond the numbers.

 

 

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