Food Planning
Vision:
The Food Planning Task Force of McLennan County seeks to ensure that by 2015 all citizens in McLennan County have access to 3 nutritious meals a day, 7 days a week. The FPTFMC seeks to develop a strategic plan to achieve this goal.
Executive Committee:
A 14 member board oversees the development of this plan.
- Jim Bush, Mayor, City of Waco – Co-Chair
- Rev. Kenneth Moerbe, Director, McLennan County Hunger Coalition – Co-Chair
- Matt Hess, Education Director, World Hunger Relief International – Co-Organizer
- Alexis Weaver, Director of Community Development, Greater Waco Chamber – Co-Organizer
- Buddy Edwards, Executive Director, Caritas
- Mike Edrington, Store Manager, HEB
- Rev. Pam Rivera, Pastor, St. Luke’s AME
- Libby Bellinger, Meals & Wheels
- Kenneth Palmer, Waco ISD Nutrition Services
- Jennifer Morgan, Waco-McLennan County Public Health District
- Steve Gill, ALCOA
- Toni Herbert, Councilperson, City of Waco
- Lorri Kaiser, Health & Human Services
- Rosemary Townsend, Baylor University
Strategic Planning
In preparation for the USDA Hunger Free Communities grant program, 12 individuals from organizations in McLennan County gathered to discuss the strategic pursuit of funding and the development of a Food Planning Task Force that would work to solve hunger in the area. The day long strategic planning session resulted in multiple definitions and clarifications, which will aid in the pursuit of this funding. This Strategic Planning session included details regarding how the Food Planning Task Force will assess need, build its capacity to solve hunger issues, build strategic partnerships, and define goals, objectives and activities within the grant program. The project will focus on McLennan County only.
Areas of Strategic Intent:
School Age Children’s Nutrition
In School Nutrition Develop a system that delivers nutritious food for Children in School, increase participation in school meals, and improve nutrition education in school
Out of School Nutrition Develop a system that ensures proper access to nutritious food for Children during the summer in collaboration with churches, parks and rec., schools districts, businesses , housing entities, and social service providers
Early Childhood Nutrition
Develop a system that ensures proper access to nutritious food for children younger than school age in collaboration with churches, child care center parks and rec., businesses, housing entities, and social service providers
Seniors & Disabled
Develop a system that ensures proper access to nutritious food for Seniors
Develop a tool to assess the nutrition of Seniors and Disabled in McLennan County
Supplemental & Emergency Food
Develop a system that ensures access to nutritious emergency food. Make the system efficient, reduce duplication, help people move to more sustainable solutions. Develop resources for these providers.
Local Food Economy
Increase access to and empower people to take an active role in creating a local food system. Encourage entrepreneurship of growers. Food is sold, donated or consumed by local growers.
Federal Assistantship Programs
Create a system that will increase participation by eligible people in SNAP , WIC and other programs, in order to achieve economic growth and better nutrition in our community.
Project Coordinator – open position
Through the USDA Hunger Free Communities Initiative, the FPTFMC plans to hire a project coordinator and develop this plan. Applications are due December 1, 2010.
The FPTFMC is focusing initially on 3 of the 14 goals of the Hunger-Free Communities Initiative in its research and planning activities. These goals are as follows:
- Goal # 2 : Assessing food insecurity problems and evaluating existing services in the community to determine necessary strategies for responding to unmet needs;
- Goal # 3 : Establishing a group of individuals, including low-income participants, to develop and to implement policies and programs to combat food insecurity, to monitor responsiveness of existing services, and to address underlying causes and factors related to hunger;
- Goal # 5 : Effectively integrating public and private resources, including local business, to alleviate food insecurity.
This will be a two year project with specific short term objectives, we are seeking to hire an outside contractor who is experienced in coordinating large scale initiatives and performing data collection and analysis. This contractor will be selected based on qualifications described in the Project Coordinator job description HERE. In summary, the Project Coordinator is expected to coordinate the assessment component of the project including:
- Collect existing data;
- Collect original data;
- Data analysis;
- Gap-Analysis;
- Coordinate resource group and work group meetings;
- Collect resource and work group reports;
- Participate in the development of a comprehensive plan to end hunger in McLennan County.
The Project Coordinator will be required to read and thoroughly understand the Economic Research Services’ publication Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit.
Presentations
Multiple presentations are available about the Food Planning Task Force. Please see below for a power point presentation and a one-page flyer about the FPTFMC.