Mark Jackson, chief development officer of Central Texas Food Bank, is ready for a new era in the fight against food insecurity, one in which a focus on nutrition education and access to fresh food takes center stage.
“The paradox of food insecurity and obesity being tied is real,” Jackson said.
Central Texas Food Bank is a nonprofit that uses donations and volunteer workers in addition to paid staff to provide food to communities in need. Donations of canned food still provide a significant contribution to the nonprofit, and Jackson said that increased distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables is key to improving nutrition in food-insecure communities, where the price of food is a component in dietary decisions.
CTFB’s new facility in Southwest Austin, which celebrated three years June 17, is equipped to do that. With seven times the freezer and refrigerator space of the former location on South Congress Avenue, the nonprofit has increased capacity to store and distribute fresh fruits and vegetables. When planning the move to the 31,000-square-foot facility, the food bank also revamped its logo to feature a carrot, symbolic of the nonprofit’s mission of providing fresh produce.
“It’s given us the opportunity to really tell the story of the food bank in a bigger way,” Jackson said.
That story began in the 1980s, when the food bank was founded as Capital Texas Food Bank. Now, after decades of growth, CTFB, which was renamed to better reflect its coverage area in 2016, serves 21 counties across the region, and last year it distributed 46.5 million pounds of food. About 38% of that distribution was fresh produce, either donated through the nonprofit’s Food Rescue program—which receives donations of excess meat, produce and bakery items from grocery stores, such as H-E-B—or purchased with financial donations.
As time passes, the food bank has implemented new methods to distribute food to its wide coverage area, sending mobile distribution centers to rural communities and equipping produce hubs in Waco and Temple to increase the availability of fresh food in key areas.
“If feel like we lead the pack amongst a lot of food banks in the nation when it comes to nutrition,” Jackson said.
This summer, CTFB is focusing on the 1 in 5 children who are experiencing food insecurity, many of whom are missing the free and reduced-price lunches they normally receive in school, he said. The Summer Meals for Kids program launched in May, along with the Summer Meals that Matter donation drive, the goal of which is to raise funds to provide 1 million meals to people in need.
