"Nine for 90" United Way spotlights summer food program!

As the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas prepares to celebrate 90 years of service, coordination and engagement in our city, nine great events will be rolled out in partnership with the Dallas Cowboys, local corporations and non-profits. 

CitySquare hosted event number 2 just a few days ago. 

Look here to see what happened!

CitySquare summer food program shines. . .

Dallas groups tout program to feed kids during summer break
By MASAKO MELISSA HIRSCH / Staff Writer--Dallas Morning News

About 1 in 4 children in Texas don’t know where they’ll get their next meal — a problem exacerbated during the summer when they don’t have the option of free or reduced-priced school breakfasts and lunches.

On Thursday, several organizations aimed to raise awareness about the troublesome issue and to let local families know about a program that can help.

The United Way of Metropolitan Dallas hosted the event at CitySquare’s Opportunity Center. CitySquare is a nonprofit devoted to fighting poverty.

It was the second in United Way’s “Nine for 90” series, which honors the organization’s 90th anniversary with nine community service projects presented by Texas Instruments. Each project highlights one of the United Way’s main focus areas of education, financial stability and health.

“For all of us here today and in Dallas, Texas, that is not acceptable,” said Jennifer Sampson, president and CEO of United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, referring to the number of children going hungry.

The event corresponded with the kickoff in Dallas of the Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program, in which more than 100 organizations provide food at about 1,000 sites in Dallas County for children during the summer months.

About 73 percent of Dallas County students receive free or reduced-price school meals. Yet only about 14 percent of them take part in the summer mealsprogram.

Press Release: CitySquare wins state award!

CitySquare Receives Governor’s Volunteer Award for Community Leadership for Its Food on the Move Program

Dallas, TX. August 5, 2013 --- The 30^th Annual Governor’s Volunteer Awards have been announced with CitySquare being named as a recipient in the Community Leadership category. These awards allow the State of Texas to recognize individuals, organizations, corporations and public entities that truly embody the Texas tradition of community service.  The Community Leadership category recognizes an individual, group or organization for strengthening their community through outstanding partnerships, service and volunteerism. Community Leaders understand the importance of service and develop connections between groups and individuals to help them craft collaborative solutions to local needs. They exhibit a dedication to their communities that inspires those around them to serve.

Food on the Move provides over one million meals in a mobile feeding program targeting youth at low-income apartment sites, churches, nonprofits, and summer camps.  Funding for the food comes through the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program. Food on the Move takes a stand against childhood hunger statewide, offering mobile feeding programs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. Through an innovative collaboration with AmeriCorps, the program has delivered meals and provided enrichment to thousands of children. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has hailed Food on the Move “a model for the rest of the nation.”

“Both the kids we serve and our AmeriCorps members benefit from Food on the Move,” says Dr. Keven Vicknair, Director of the Food on the Move and AmeriCorps programs at CitySquare, “We are proud to be recognized with the Community Leadership Award especially for a program that is helping to shape young people into community leaders.”

All of the awardees will be honored on September 11^th at a private dinner with OneStar Foundation board members and other dignitaries at the Renaissance Austin Hotel in Austin. In addition, awardees will be recognized throughout the Texas Nonprofit Summit on September 12th and 13th 2013.

CitySquare is one of the largest, most effective faith-based organizations in North Texas, operating a network of services and programs focused on fighting poverty through hunger relief, health care, housing and hope. CitySquare is the third largest summer food sponsor in the state of Texas.  A United Way agency, CitySquare is ranked a 4-star charity by Charity Navigator with more than 92% of revenue going directly to its programs.

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For more information about the event and the work of CitySquare, please contact: Katherine Allen at 214.303.2146, kallen@CitySquare.org  or Lou Ann York at 214.343.1599, lapub@sbcglobal.net .

Food needs grow. . .

Last week, Dr. Keven Vicknair, Director of CitySquare's "Food on the Move" initiative that seeks to address the food and nutritional needs of low-income, working families, sent me the following report on activity in our Food Pantry through the end of July 2012.  One conclusion that seems clear is the fact that the economy hurts the poor most of all.

Here's what she reports:

From January to July of 2012, the Food Pantry provided food to 12,901 individuals, of whom 4,478 (34.7%) have never before required our services and 2,283 (17.7%) who have returned after not needing us for at least six months.

This lets me know that the economy is not only pushing new people below the poverty threshold, but is in fact returning many people to the poverty rolls who had started to be self-sufficient but once again find themselves struggling.

 

AmeriCorps

CitySquare's great summer AmeriCorps team begins work on Monday, June 4!  All of our members will be working with children and nutrition in one way or another throughout the summer.

Texas has the 2nd highest rate of “food insecurity” in the U.S. and the highest rate of child hunger in the nation.

With the cut-backs in funding for recreation centers and summer programs in Dallas, CitySquare has filled in the gaps for several years. Summer 2012 is no different.

Once again, City Square and its team of AmeriCorps volunteers, begin a Summer of Service and the summer food program, Food on the Move, to see that Dallas area kids living in under served communities will have food and activities this summer. CitySquare’s Food on the Move program deploys mobile feeding units into the neighborhoods where children are not involved in other summer programming.

This year, CitySquare goes statewide instituting the summer food program in Irving, Austin, Houston and San Antonio! The goal for Food on the Move 2012 is to serve over 500,000 summer meals and make an impact on childhood hunger across Texas.

It is not only food that will be served up by these young ambassadors. They also spend an hour each day with the kids on their “routes” in activities geared to enrich young minds and to prevent obesity.

Food on the Move is a project in partnership with Pepsi.

Last week, CitySquare organized the swearing in of over 250 AmeriCorps members!  Thanks to Dr. Terry Flowers and St. Philip’s School & Community Center for  hosting the rousing ceremony!

It was my great honor to administer the AmeriCorps Pledge to our new members:

I will get things done for America

To make our people safer, smarter and healthier

I will bring Americans together

To strengthen our communities

Faced with apathy, I will take action

Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground

Faced with adversity, I will persevere

I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond

I am an AmeriCorps member

And I will get things done!

Meeting the First Lady!

Last Friday, I had the amazing honor of meeting and greeting the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama.

Mrs. Obama visited Dallas to celebrate the great progress of so many Texas schools in preparing and serving more healthy foods to public school students and to promote and extend her "Let's Move" initiative as a remedy for youth obesity. You may link to a video report about her visit by The Dallas Morning News below.

City Council Member, Pauline Medrano (actually my council member) took the photo of our brief chat about CitySquare's Food on the Move program that delivered thousands of meals to low-income children last summer in partnership with PepsiCo and our AmeriCorps team. 

No surprise, I found the First Lady to be down-to-earth, interested in our work and delightful! 

What a great moment. 

To watch the DMN video click here.

Food for Good

Great story in yesterday's edition of The Dallas Morning News about our partnership with the U. S. Department of Agriculture, AmeriCorps and PepsiCo to provide hundreds of thousands of additional summer meals to low-income children in Dallas.

Here's a taste of the report by Ananda Boardman:


Food for Good summer program serves 200,000th meal in Dallas

Htee Kushee remembers running from soldiers in her native Burma as a 3-year-old.

Htee still runs, but now she and her friends gather twice a day at the Towne Center Apartments in northeast Dallas, where their motivation is happiness instead of fear. Thanks to the Food for Good Initiative, a partnership between PepsiCo Inc. and Central Dallas Ministries, 10-year-old Htee and other North Texas youngsters get a free breakfast and lunch each weekday.

"I like it," Htee said simply.

Texas ranks second to Mississippi as the state with the most kids at risk to go hungry each day, according to Feeding America, a Chicago-based hunger relief organization.

Between 300,000 and 400,000 children receive free or reduced-price lunches in the Dallas area during the school year, but during the summer, access to such meals is severely limited.

For the second consecutive year, the Food for Good program has helped fill that void.

On Wednesday, it served its 200,000th meal of the summer, and officials expect to do more.

To read the entire report click here.

CDM's AmeriCorps team: Food on the Move

Throughout this summer until school resumes, Central Dallas Ministries (CDM) will deploy a large part of its Ameri-Corps team and half of its Summer Lunch Program resources in a partnership with PepsiCo to bring Food on the Move to a number of inner city neighborhoods in Dallas County.  Part of PepsiCo's Food for Good initiative, our partnership intends to provide up to 500,000 meals to over 10,000 additional children during the summer, school break. 

Food on the Move is the only mobile food delivery program in the nation operating at this scale.  PepsiCo's involve-ment makes mobile delivery possible for children who are not involved in site-based summer programs.  The trucks deliver to apartment complexes, city parks and other high density gathering places for children who are often unattended by adults.  The genius of Food on the Move is that it takes the food to those places where children live and play during the normal course of their day. 

During the school year, over 19,000,000 children participate in the free and reduced rate school lunch program, another Department of Agriculture program.  However, during the summer months, that number drops to approximately 2,500,000 participants.  The USDA is committed to closing that hunger gap for low-income children.  Food on the Move provides a workable, scalable model that could be rolled out nationally.  Such a move is our hope as we work to perfect the process here in Dallas this summer.  PepsiCo is engaged in a similar effort this summer in Chicago in a partnership with Catholic Charities.

In addition to Food on the Move, CDM administers a contract with the Texas Department of Agriculture that serves over 125 summer program sites with another 500,000 meals.  This summer is the first full season that the mobile delivery program has been operational alongside the more traditional program, site-based approach.

A typical stop on the Food on the Move routes sees a team of AmeriCorps members arriving 30 minutes before the meal delivery to gather and organize the children at the location.  PepsiCo delivers the meals and our AmeriCorps team remains after the delivery team leaves.  During the concluding half hour, our team conducts recreational, social and educational activities and invites the children to return at the same time the next day and bring friends with them.  This process repeats itself at 20 sites each day. 

To get a feel for how Food on the Move works click here to view a CBS Channel 11 news report on the effort. 

Expect additional updates throughout the summer!