Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida

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Note: The organization did not respond to this question.

Harry Chapin Food Bank invests in webinars and trainings for staff across all departments: programs, operations, development, etc. The food bank also invested in Udemy, an online learning platform that offers hundreds of courses on key soft skills and technical topics such as Office Productivity, Leadership, Marketing, Project Management, Finance and Accounting (p25), Communication, and more

Harry Chapin Food Bank is a member of Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief nonprofit. Feeding America’s mission is to feed America’s hungry through a nationwide network of approximately 200-member food banks. This network allows for open communication of ideas and best practices in food banking optimizing each organization’s effectiveness. Feeding America hosts department-specific conferences each year for its members, encouraging new ideas and successes to spread across the network. Feeding America brokers national relationships that leverage the distribution of food that would otherwise go to waste. We are also a member of Feeding Florida. Feeding Florida unites 12 Feeding America member food banks with one voice for advocacy at the state and national levels and ensues a leveraging of resources, both funds and food, to the membership. Locally, countless organizations, communities and businesses collect and donate food that we use in conjunction with our food rescue.

Over the past year, we discovered that the transition back to some semblancy of normal after the pandemic was a bumpy road. The Delta and Omicron variants swept across Southwest Florida, but we began to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Increased vaccination rates and improved treatment options for those who became sick played an enormous role in reducing the medical crisis caused by the pandemic. Rigid safety protocols were lessened, and we were finally able to gather together in-person to share celebrations and achievements. However, an economic crisis has emerged in the wake of the pandemic, and many of the families we serve are struggling to make ends meet. Even two-income households are unable to stretch their food budgets like they used to. Not only are they facing a losing battle with inflation, they are juggling double-digit rent and utilities increases, surging healthcare expenses, above average gasoline prices and ever-rising prices at the grocery store. These challenges impact us as well. We are facing 25% increases in the cost of food. The cost to transport and distribute food has doubled, both in terms of our own fleet and delivering food to the food bank. Due to increases in the price of oil, our fuel costs jumped from roughly $7,000 per month to nearly $20,000 per month, and expenses related to ship the food that we purchase from various food retailers or Feeding America to our warehouse also doubled. As a result of the emerging economic crisis, we continue to serve a high need compared to pre-pandemic levels. There has been an increase in demand since the beginning of the calendar year, and we have been feeding close to 300,000 people who are hungry each month. Our total distributions last year were over 20% higher than our totals prior to the pandemic. Through our food distribution programs, we distributed 34.7 million pounds of food last year. This food is the equivalent of nearly 29 million meals.