Hulett began her career in social work in Houston, helping teenage mothers connect with resources. She said having the opportunity to help people one-on-one sparked a career of working to help those in crisis.
“Social work is a lot of trauma, a lot of crisis and not a lot of resources, and so what you have to do is love what you do,” Hulett said. “People say this—and I know it’s cheesy—but I have never really worked a day in my life since I found it. I enjoy working with people and meeting them in that place and trying to help out as much as we can.”
From there, she moved north, living in Boston and later New York, working in foster care prevention to help children stay with their families.
However, following 9/11, Hulett and her family decided to move back to Texas, settling in The Woodlands, where they have lived for nearly two decades. Before joining the food bank, she served for nearly four years as the executive director of Meals on Wheels, a nonprofit that works to bring meals to homebound and disabled seniors.
When Hulett came on as president and CEO, the food bank had recently moved from a 9,000-square-foot facility to a 60,000-square-foot warehouse.
“The food bank was going through something that’s extremely common in nonprofit—they were going from small to large, and that’s kind of what I was stepping into,” she said. “So that’s kind of my mandate here is to make that transition. My job is to make sure that everyone in Montgomery County knows why the food bank is here, who we’re serving and why it’s important.”
While Hulett said scaling up has been a challenge, she has spent much of her time working to implement policies and procedures and getting to know the many agencies the food bank partners with, all while working with a limited resources.
“Every day when I pull into the food bank, I tell myself that this is a Fortune 500 company,” Hulett said. “We’re not, but that’s the standard here. You really have to bring that message to yourself in your own mindset and to your team and to your culture, because that benefits the client. You can’t lower your standard because you don’t have the resources.”
Helping after Harvey
The newest addition to The WJust six weeks into her new job, Hurricane Harvey struck the Texas coast, causing widespread flooding and damage to the Greater Houston area.
Hulett said she and her staff worked nearly nonstop, partnering with national organizations like Feeding America as well as Conroe ISD, local nonprofits, neighborhood associations, companies and small businesses to bring food and relief to residents.
“[Our employees] worked 25 hours a day, eight days a week,” Hulett said. “We just worked until we dropped and then showed up the next day at 5 [a.m.] and got going, because we wanted to say yes to every donation and we wanted to say yes to every need.”
Hulett said while Harvey was disastrous, the silver lining was the time she spent with her new staff.
“Six weeks in with the staff, you have not bonded. There hasn’t been enough time,” she said. “Words really cannot describe how close you feel with a group after you’ve gone through something like that.”
As the Greater Houston area continues to recover from Harvey, Hulett said she is working with other area food banks and partners to bring more programs to the area, including a summer feeding program, which will be implemented this year. The program aims to help bring hot meals to children during the summer while schools are closed.
Hulett said filling gaps in people’s lives and helping those in crisis to get a leg up are one of the most important parts of her job.
“None of us are any different than one another—we’re all looking for the same thing,” she said. “Now it’s been scaled up as a CEO, but it all started in people’s homes getting to know them one-on-one with their kids breaking down those barriers.”
