Transcription of Kristen Miale for the show Sharing Strength, #90
Dr. Lisa: One of the very first shows we did on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour was with the Good Shepherd Food Bank, and the then Director, Rick Small. A lot has change in the time that we’ve been doing the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour, we are now on Show Number 90, and today we have with us, Kristen Miale, who is the current President of the Good Shepherd Food Bank, here in Maine. Thank you for coming in.
Kristen M: Thank you, for having me.
Dr. Lisa: Kristen, I know that a lot has changed since we had our first show, I don’t know, I think it was probably about 80 episodes ago. There are a lot of transitions happening but really it’s the same mission, and that is getting food to the people of Maine who need it.
Kristen M: That’s correct.
Dr. Lisa: Let’s first talk about; what is the definition of a food bank?
Kristen M: Well, a food bank really is the grocery store, if you will, to all the ending hunger organizations around the state. Food pantries, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, they serve the end client, but they come to Good Shepherd Food Bank to get all the food that they need to run their programs; and so by being a member of Good Shepherd they’re able to get food through us at significantly reduced costs, oftentimes even for free, so that they’re able to do the work that they do every day, and so the Food Bank, it’s the largest hunger relief organization in the State, and we provide approximately 13 million pounds of food to over 600 agencies around the state, serving about 100,000 Mainers every year.
Dr. Lisa: Has this number gone up in recent years.
Kristen M: It has. It’s gone up significantly, since the recession hit our food pantries report upwards of 50% increase in the need, and I think what’s most striking is for many food pantries, we’ll say, we used to see the same families and we got to know them, and these were just kind of chronically, poor people who needed our assistance. They said, now we are seeing people who were employed, we are seeing carpenters, we are seeing artists, we are seeing people who we’ve never seen before come to the food pantries.
They are also seeing more and more families coming regularly as opposed with being once a month, or kind of an episodic need, it’s now more of a chronic, weekly need.
Dr. Lisa: Before you took on the role as President of the Good Shepherd Food Bank, you were the Founder and Program Director of Cooking Matters.
Kristen M: That’s correct.
Dr. Lisa: Cooking Matters, of course is an educational program that comes under the egis of Share Our Strength?
Kristen M: That’s right.
Dr. Lisa: So tell me about Cooking Matters because we’ve had some information about this on the show before. I think about a year ago, John Woods came in and talked about Share Our Strength, and we had I believe Jeff Landry talking about Cooking Matters, but this was your … originally this was your baby.
Kristen M: It was. It was a program that I started … I started volunteering in different soup kitchens and food pantries probably around 2007, 2008, and I am somebody who is very passionate about food, but I also care about eating healthy. When I started volunteering, I was really surprised at a lot of the poor quality of food that was being given out, and I just started asking questions about, why can’t we get healthier food to these people in need, and a common answer I was given, was that if we give people fresh vegetables and fresh protein they don’t know what to do with it, because nobody knows how to cook.
I started offering cooking classes, and it just took on a life of its own, and I stumbled upon Cooking Matters while researching getting funding, and it was just … it was the program that I’ve always dreamed of, and so I reached out to them and asked how can we get this program in Maine. Then I reached out to John Woods, and we connected there, and John helped secure some funding and it just all took off from there.
In 2010 we launched Cooking Matters for Maine, and then I brought the program to Good Shepherd Food Bank knowing that it needed a bigger home in order to reach even more people, and I’m now very happy to say we have Cooking Matters Classes going in every single county in the state. What I think is so great about this program and why it’s such a great fit to have it as part of the Food Bank, is it really addresses one of the root causes of hunger.
We obviously need to feed people, they need to be fed, but we really start … we need to also look at how can we really solve the problem, and teaching people how to cook is a great way to actually solve the hunger problem, because what happens too often, is when people have limited resources they tend to run out of those resources obviously before they’re able to purchase more food, and Cooking Matters shows them how they can stretch their food dollars. How to purchase food more thoughtfully, even something as simple as shopping by unit price is a common skill that most people don’t have, and so we are able to teach them those skills in addition to eating healthy so they improve their ability to work and be productive citizens, and all of that really goes after tackling the root causes of hunger.
Dr. Lisa: Hunger has a very different face than it used to, not only the type of person that is going to the food bank or the food pantry, but also how it manifests. You have people who may look as though they are overfed, because perhaps are overweight or obese, but they are nutritionally depleted. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Kristen M: That’s correct. We have a real paradox going on in America right now, and it stems from the fact that when you have a limited amount of money to buy food, you’re going to purchase as much food as you can for that money. In our society what that means is a lot of cheap, simple carbohydrates, and so we have now an entire population of people that are overweight, but also malnourished. What we see at the Food Bank is a real change in our role, from being not just a provider of calories, but a provider of nutrition.
Seeing that people don’t lack access to the calories, they lack access to the nutritious food, and we all see it in the grocery store, the fresh foods are oftentimes the most expensive, and so … and it tends to perpetuate again, this problem of poverty, because when you’re overweight, then all of a sudden you have all the problems that come with obesity. Lower-income people have higher rates of heart disease, of diabetes, of hypertension, which then makes their healthcare costs go up. It impacts their ability to work and care for our children, and that cycle continues.
Dr. Lisa: At the same time, what I understand from our conversation yesterday is that this all began … food banking began because supermarkets and other large facilities were looking to give their excess to a place that could then distribute it to other people who might want it. What I understand is that there is more fresh meat, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables that is being made available to the food bank. Doesn’t this create some problems as far as distribution?
Kristen M: It does. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. Food banks all around the country started on the same model, where the large grocery store chains would have these distribution centers, and they would … when they’d have access inventory it would come back to what they call the reclamation center, and that food would then be brought to the food banks, and all of that was non-perishable foods, primarily canned goods.
Then that was the food that was then stored in warehouses, and sent out to food pantries, and so most food banks have large infrastructure of dry storage, and all of their food pantries tend to have little to no storage and they may be open one day a week. Some are only open one day a month, but it worked.
What we are seeing now is grocery stores have less and less of the non-perishable food, however, they have more and more of the perishable food. I still am amazed at the size of the produce department to my local grocery store now, and the same with the seafood department, and the meat department, and the wonderful is that food we all know is the healthiest food, so that’s the food now that grocery stores have much more supply of to give to food banks.
However, five years ago, that food was all being thrown out, and grocery stores now are recognizing the need to really be zero waste organizations, both from an environmental perspective, a cost perspective and from a community perspective. We are partnering with a lot of the major retail chains in the state to get that perishable food, so the problem we have is, our whole infrastructure is based on non-perishable food. A 54,000-square-foot dry storage warehouse doesn’t help you with a tractor-trailer-load of kale, so we now are having more refrigerated trucks; we now have large freezers and walk-in coolers.
We are not helping to secure grants for our food pantry partners because they need refrigeration, and I think the biggest challenge to us is the turnover, because obviously by the time it comes off the shelf at the grocery store, we have maybe 48 hours to turn that around . It’s a significant challenge, however, the great news about this is, this is healthy food, and this is the food that we know low-income families have the least access to, so it’s a solution that we are going to get our hands around, and really start to make a difference.
Dr. Lisa: Why is there less availability of the non-perishable food?
Kristen M: It’s really just a matter of improving business systems. Over the past two decades, the data, there is a big data, and I just know … there have been several times when I’ve been in my grocery store, and I swear when I pull off the last can of beans there is the stock boy opening up the box, putting on the new can of beans, and that’s just how things go. We all benefit from that, because that leads to more efficient food systems and lower prices, so it’s a good thing that’s happening overall, and that’s certainly not going to change.
It just forces us to get more creative, find new sources for food, which we’ve been very successful in doing. We are getting more food out than we ever have before, it’s just more costly to go and get it, and it takes a little bit more creative thinking, but the food is out there. To me, the most really motivating thing about this work, is feeding people is quite simple, and people aren’t hungry in Maine because there isn’t enough food. I mean, any trip to the grocery store will tell you that. We are not in a famine situation; we are not in a third word kind of famine situation. We have the food; it’s just a matter of getting it to the people who need it.
Of all the complicated problems out there, this is probably one of the simplest. I also think it’s one of the problems, where, if we solve this one, we are going to be that much more able to solve some of the other more able to solve some of the other more complicated problems. We obviously, especially with feeding a child, you can’t prepare a child to go out and succeed if they’re hungry, and so how many of the problems of low-income children could we solve just by making sure they have a full stomach every morning.
Dr. Lisa: This is not your first go round. I mean, you’re young but you have had other careers before this, you are a financial analysts for quite a while, you’ve done a lot of work in the business world, and somehow this whole nonprofit thing came about, and you said, “I can use these skills in the nonprofit world.” How did that come to be?
Kristen M: Well, I’ve always definitely been one of those people where I always said, “Someday I want to own my own something,” and so being a financial analyst and a business consultant allowed me to work with business owners for years, which I just loved, and I loved helping them solve problems. Loved crunching the numbers to figure out what the real issues were, and I saw how much business owners just … they lived and breathed their work. I was always envious of that, but I also recognize that if you’re ever going to be the one to raise your hand and say, I want to be in charge, you need to love what you do.
I had yet to ever find something that really spoke to me, and make me willing to make that kind of commitment, and so when I started volunteering, because I wasn’t getting that fulfillment from my day job, at least not … I’ve been getting intellectual fulfillment, but not spiritual fulfillment, if you will. I was getting that through volunteering, and that was when I was just seeing a real need for … It sounds so clichéd to say, more business-type principles in the nonprofit world, because you hear that all the time, but that is what it needed, and this is … the food banking world is going through a real seismic shift in the whole business model.
Just following your heart isn’t going to solve all those problems, and we need to get into really looking at the data, seeing what the data is telling us, optimizing our resources, and really thinking hard about finding creative solutions to the problem.
Dr. Lisa: It’s not just following your heart but it is following your heart and using your head.
Kristen M: That’s right.
Dr. Lisa: I know that you know this, I mean, you were a Board Member and Treasurer of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Maine, and you told me a story, I believe yesterday about … that cemented in my mind why you do this sort of thing, about a child who was asked by the teacher, are you excited about vacation?
Kristen M: Yeah. This was in … I was at a meeting in Bangor a few weeks, and a kindergarten teacher was sharing with us that she was talking with her students about the upcoming vacation, and just thinking the kids would all be excited, and a little boy raised his hand and said, “Well, I’m not excited about vacation because that means I’m going to be hungry.”
This is the story we hear from teachers all the time who really, I think more than anyone, see the effect of hunger on children, and something as simple as the sum … as a vacation, which you don’t think of enjoying a vacation shouldn’t be a privilege, it should be something that every child has the opportunity to do, and the fact that knowing that that school meal that they rely on is going to go away, and that impact on a child is just … it’s heartbreaking, and John Woods always says this, and I completely agree. “It’s not only heartbreaking it’s unacceptable,” and that’s the key.
We said, we are not in a famine situation, we are … we see food everywhere, it’s unacceptable that we have children who are going hungry.
Dr. Lisa: We are coming up on summer, and you just described a child who was away from school for a week, for a vacation break, summer break is weeks long. How do you at the Good Shepherd Food Bank, deal with the hunger that’s associated with being away from food sources that are available at school?
Kristen M: The real savior for summer, for children, is the Summer Food Program, which is similar program to the School Lunch Program during the school year. It comes from the same … it’s Federally funded, has had bipartisan support for decades, and it provides money to purchase lunches for children who qualify for school lunch and they can get them during the summer months. The problem we have in Maine and throughout the rest of the country, is finding more and more host sites to actually be willing to do these lunches.
Last year Good Shepherd became a host site for the first time, and we did three sites in Bangor, and we were the first Summer Food Program to get launched in the City of Bangor, which is the second-largest city in Maine. Has a significant amount of hungry children, and there was no summer lunch program. We are launching other sites in Ellsworth and Brewer this summer as well, but unfortunately, we still only have 15% of children who are eligible to get this lunch, receive it.
It’s extreme burden on the parents, because the parents are used to these children getting their meals from the school, and now it’s an estimate of approximately 200 additional meals the parents need to come up with, and as we know, they are already strapped. We hear this from our food pantries that they see the demand go up in the summer because parents have to replace this meal they rely on during the school year through the food pantry, so it’s a real challenge.
Dr. Lisa: What about the people who might say: well, there’s food stamps, there’s Federal assistance, and why can’t people just go get food stamps, and exist off that, and feed their children off that. What do you say about that?
Kristen M: Well Food Stamps is a great program. They changed the name to SNAP, I don’t know why, still know that it’s food stamps, and it’s a fantastic program, it’s an extremely efficient program, but what many people don’t realize is how limiting the program is. Approximately 40 percent of the people that we see come through the Food Pantry Programs don’t qualify for SNAP.
SNAP is mostly for families with children, so if you’re a single adult, you only qualify for up to three months a year for food stamps, and the other nine months you’re on your own. Then also, doesn’t provide enough, it helps. It certainly helps, but it provides approximately $1.38 per person per meal, which, if anyone has ever tried to buy lunch for $1.38 even if you’re buying it at the grocery store and making it yourself, it’s pretty challenging. We know the average meal in Maine is $2.75, so there’s a significant gap there.
There is also the gap that in order to qualify for SNAP, the threshold is around $30,000 for a family of four, and we know that more than half the people on SNAP actually make less than half of that. It’s more of a question of yes, SNAP is there, and we want people to utilize it, but even with that, it’s not enough.
Dr. Lisa: Then the opposite is true, you’ll have people who will say: well, okay, let’s get rid of SNAP, let’s get rid of Food Stamps, and maybe we should have this all be taken care of by charitable organizations, like the Good Shepherd Food Bank. Is that possible?
Kristen M: No. The need would definitely crush the food banking system. I think there’s great value in Neighbors Feeding Neighbors, and the charitable organizations do amazing work. Our network of food pantry partners, are unbelievable, and I think there’s great value in community wealth, that’s built through this system. This system really is meant to be a filler, it’s meant to be a supplement, so we talked about how SNAP doesn’t go all the way to meeting a family’s needs, that’s where the food pantry comes in.
We help them stretch those dollars, we help them fill in that gap, but when you look across the country, SNAP provides about $85 billion worth of food to people in need. The entire food banking system is $5 billion, so there is no way that that system could absorb; I mean, even a 10 percent cut would be asking the system to more than double, which is really unsustainable.
Dr. Lisa: Kristen, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on the show, to talk about the Good Shepherd Food Bank was because of your relationship with Share Our Strength, and the work that Share Our Strength is doing with Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design, Media Collective and the Kennebunkport Festival which is coming up very soon; also the Taste of the Nation which is coming up very soon. These are two very exciting events that people can take part in. What other ways can people get involved so that they can help their hungry neighbors in the State of Maine?
Kristen M: There are many ways, and what I like is, everybody has something to share, right, that’s the whole philosophy of Share our Strength, which I just love, and we said it, attending events is a great way to do it, and it’s a lot of fun, and Share our Strength puts on some of the best events in the state. If some people don’t have the time, and if that’s the case, Good Shepherd utilizes over 1,500 volunteers every year. Food pantries need volunteers, so whether you want to get involved at the State level, or in your own backyard, you can contact your local pantry or Good Shepherd and volunteer.
We always need food, same thing, and we always, especially, keep it local, if you want to do a food drive just amongst your friends and your community, contact your local food pantry and they would love to receive those food donations. We say it’s time, dollars and food, we need all three, and everybody has something to give, and it’s going to take everybody, collectively, to solve this problem.
We do amazing work at the Food Bank with our food pantry partners, but we are still only reaching half the people who need our help, so there’s still a lot of work to do.
Dr. Lisa: Kristen, how do people find out about the Good Shepherd Food Bank?
Kristen M: They can go online to www.feedingmaine.org, is the best way, and all the information is there. There’s also a food map on our website where you can enter your zip code and it will tell you where your local food pantry is with the contact information as well.
Dr. Lisa: If people who are listening actually have the need for food themselves, then they can also access those resources?
Kristen M: That’s right. They can use the food map and get information about their local pantry; also 2-1-1 is a wonderful resource, provided by United Way, that will give them additional information, and not just food resources but other resources available to help them.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Kristen Miale, the President of Good Shepherd Food Bank that has been affiliated with Share Our Strength for quite a long time, and Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design, the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour, we are proud to be affiliated with Share our Strength. We are really excited to be able to be a part of helping feed our Maine neighbors. Thank you so much for all the work you’re doing in this area
Kristen M: Thank you; and thank you for having me.