MEND - Meet Each Need with Dignity

Note: The organization did not respond to this question.

Note: The organization did not respond to this question.

MEND's board participates in an annual orientation that emphasizes their specific leadership role. We also match new with older-tenured members for mentorship. Most staff leadership development in the last 12-18 mos. was organic & largely based on a mentoring model. The team participates in decision making and planning - particularly critical e.g. for COVID adaptations. Team leaders provide opportunities for staff to move through the stages of learning - from unconscious incompetence through unconscious competence. Weekly meetings include goal setting and coaching. The pandemic unleashed our teams’ leadership abilities. Operating a food pantry with a 400% increase in people benefitting from our services required agility and finding the most effective model. Most of the improvements came from staff suggestions. After all, they were the ones on the front lines. Our model was praised by the LAPD for ensuring maximum safety for drive-through and walk-up clients when visiting our facility.

As a community anchor for 50 years, MEND has consistently cultivated strong partnerships. E.g., our Community Nutrition Program (CNP) links local agencies to MEND's food bank to ensure food-insecure people get access to food. Working with over 50 agencies, CNP benefits thousands of people in LA. To ensure a successful 2020 Census count, MEND collaborated with local groups to avoid duplication of efforts, and ensure a strong & unified message. And, as part of COVID-19 vaccine outreach, we are partnered with local agencies, clinics, hospitals, & pharmacies to help increase coverage in neighborhoods that were hard-hit with COVID. The marketing team creates targeted marketing & social media campaigns, community events, and partnerships, e.g. with a local retailer & its customers, and several corporations & their employees, to restock the food bank. Finally, MEND is creating a co-location opportunity to ensure critical services are easily accessible to the vulnerable people we serve.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated impacts, caused a massive surge in demand for emergency services at MEND. In fact, by the end of 2020, our services had benefited well over 220,000 people in Los Angeles, providing access to nutritious food, diapers for the poorest families, COVID-outreach supports, home-delivery of food to the most at-risk, and case management interventions for enrolled participants. The first two months of the safer-at-home order compelled MEND to create new processes to meet community needs, while working within public health requirements. We moved the massive food distribution process outdoors, and because the lines of people and cars were so long we reached out to the City for traffic police help, engaged onsite security, installed speed bumps, masked up, & ensured walk-up clients were social distanced. We lost most of our volunteers in the early months, and although a core team remained, we were able to ensure successful services by reassigning staff to critical services. Additionally, the food supply chain broke down in the early weeks of COVID. We lost most of our retail store partners overnight as they struggled to restock their own stores, food donations dropped precipitately, and the National Assoc. of Letter Carriers canceled its Stamp out Hunger campaign in 2020 & 2021, a campaign which supplies us with a significant amount of food. Because of strong financial stewardship, we were able to purchase food for the first time in our history. MEND’s previous 3-year strategic plan focused on correcting long-term endemic challenges and restoring the organization back to financial health. It was imperative that MEND return to a place where it could sustain operations and weather storms such as the pandemic. And we achieved this. In fact, we recognize that had we not taken the steps we did, we may not have survived. Subsequently, the lesson of 2020 and our response in the face of COVID-19, is how resilient we and our community are.