Type of service: Food bank
Connecticut employees: 46
Headquarters: East Haven
Top executive: Nancy Carrington, CEO
Winning category: Nonprofit executive of the year
Each year since opening in 1982, the Connecticut Food Bank has fed more people in need than the year before. Carrington estimates that, daily, the food bank, through 650 food programs across its service area, which includes six of the state’s eight counties, feeds about 300,000 Connecticut citizens. That’s 37 tons of food each day, supplying a distribution network of soup kitchens and shelters, food pantries and schools, children and senior programs. Today, it is the largest centralized source of donated emergency food in Connecticut. Over the past two years, Carrington said, the highest rate of growth has come from the suburbs.
“Certainly the need in our cities remains very high, but the growth in our suburbs is where it is growing the fastest; where two wage earning households have lost that critical job, or working hours have been severely reduced, and where people are struggling, living paycheck to paycheck,’’ she said. “So many people are unemployed for such a long period now that the family can be in real difficulty that is not readily apparent.”
The Connecticut Food Bank relies on fund raising and local food donations to meet its daily mission. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides donations through The Emergency Food Assistance Program.
Food is stored in three Connecticut Food Bank warehouses in East Haven, Waterbury and Fairfield. A network of staff and volunteers comprise the Food Bank’s distribution arm, sorting through food donations to ensure all food is safe for consumption, and transporting it to locations throughout Fairfield, New Haven, Litchfield, Middlesex, New London and Windham counties for distribution to those in need.
“We depend on staff and volunteers in so many ways,” Carrington said. “The credit for this award really goes to all of those who help us do the work we do.”
Last year, she said, more than 1,500 volunteers gave 12,857 hours to the Food Bank, which is valued at about $350,000.
The need for volunteers is constant, said Carrington, not only on the front lines with distribution, but for back office work. Volunteers, in particular, help with major fund raisers like the three Walk Against Hunger events held during April in Bridgeport, Waterbury and New Haven.
“We know we’ll never end hunger,” Carrington said. “No one of us can solve the problem but, together, we can eliminate a great deal of it.”
