Commitment
Put the food-insecure family at the center of our decision-making.
Strategic Goals
By 2022, Feeding the Gulf Coast, in collaboration with Feeding America and our partners, will increase access to enough nutritious food for individuals and families struggling with hunger to make meaningful progress toward ending hunger. Additionally, we will help individuals access essential programs that provide critical resources and connect them to other community-based services. We will accomplish these directives by implementing the following four goals and strategies.
FEED
Increase access to nutritious food and reduce the food insecurity rate in our service area from 17.4% to 16.5% by 2022.
Strategies:
- Reduce the meal gap by annually serving 25 million meals by 2022.
- Transition all 24-counties in our service area from red to green.
- Offer a wide variety of nutritious food.
- Participate in regional co-ops.
- Strengthen the Agricultural Projects Program by establishing relationships with farmers to include the purchase of fresh product, accept and encourage donations of surplus, and glean fields.
- Create a Food Sourcing Committee to increase sources for food.
NOURISH
Educate agencies and clients on how to obtain and maintain a healthy diet stressing that food insecurity compromises health.
Strategies:
- Partner with healthcare providers to address food insecurity and promote screening for food insecurity and referrals to local food pantries, SNAP benefits, etc. to meet patient referral needs.
- Increase on-site partners in healthcare settings.
- Provide education on health consequences (impaired growth for children, childhood obesity and increase incomes due to poor health) of an unhealthy diet.
- Increase client consumption of fruits and vegetables.
EQUIP
Assist in sustaining food security over time by establishing community-based partners to decrease the number of families struggling with food insecurity.
Strategies:
- Increase resources available to households, beginning with public benefits such as SNAP and Child Nutrition Programs.
- Connect families with workforce development resources.
- Increase partnerships with community-based services to help families move to sustainability, stressing that the heart of the hunger problem is financial instability.
- Advocate policies such as the elimination of benefit cliffs, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), sustain SNAP levels with no block granting, increase levels of TEFAP from USDA and expansion of federally funded Child Nutrition Programs.
ENGAGE
Inspire public support by increasing awareness of the issue of hunger and foster a spirit of empathy towards forming a solution for families, children, and seniors facing hunger.
Strategies:
- Tell the story of hunger in our community.
- Recruit highly skilled volunteers to support staff in administration and operations.
- Strengthen support to provide funding for the mission.