Houston Food Bank

Child hunger initiatives - approximately 60% of children in the houston area rely on free and reduced lunch during the school year. Proper nutrition is vital to the growth and development of children. Children without proper nutrition have difficulties concentrating in school, experience tardiness, and are more prone to chronic illness that can hinder their growth and advancement. The houston food bank operates five programs that equip children and their families with tools they need to be successful: backpack buddy, kids cafe, school market, teachers aid, and nutrition education. Last year, 11.0 million meals were provided to children through one of hfbs child hunger-relief programs.

Community assistance program - houston food bank's community assistance program (cap), educates the community about available social services and state-funded programs. Through certified community resource navigators, cap provides application and technical assistance for the following benefits: snap (supplemental nutrition assistance program), medicaid, tanf (temporary assistance for needy families), and chip (children's health insurance program). The houston food bank can assist in submitting those applications electronically to the state. Cap also offers the referral partner program to assist with additional resources outside of state benefits, including rent and utility assistance, and connections to local pantries and food distributions. Services are available in english, spanish, and vietnamese. In fy24 14,105,850 meals were accessed through cap assistance. Nutrition education - the houston food bank offers free nutrition education programming in english and spanish to address food insecurity, to promote good nutrition habits for better health, and to reduce risk of diseases such as diabetes. Classes in nutrition, food safety, meal preparation, and budgeting are taught in collaboration with food bank partner agencies by houston food bank's team of registered dieticians and nutritionists. These classes revolve around healthy eating tips based on the usda myplate and dietary guidelines for americans. Each class includes the creation of a recipe highlighting the material of the class. Last year, 293 classes were provided by hfb's nutrition education program; 5,232 individuals and 390 partners participated. Classes are offered virtually and in-person to hfb partners, community organizations, and schools. Senior box - the senior box program also known as the commodity supplemental food program (csfp) is a federally-funded national food distribution effort from the united states department of agriculture (usda) that is designed to improve the health and nutrition of income-eligible seniors (60+). Through this program seniors receive a box of non-perishable food (valued at approximately $50) each month, which helps stretch their available grocery dollars. The senior box program is currently serving over 9.995 seniors each month.

Other program services: food for change is an innovative strategy that goes beyond emergency food assistance to address the root causes of hunger. This program uses food as a catalyst, in partnership with social service programs that provide workforce programs, higher education institutions, and health partners, to help individuals improve their quality of life through economic, higher ed, and health-related programs that encourage family financial stability or help participants manage their healthcare needs. The food bank's role is to provide food resources to support neighbors participating in the various economic, higher education, and health opportunity programming. This support comes in the form of food scholarships or food prescriptions (food rx). Estimated annual value of food scholarships/food rx clients: $2,160/yr with 30 lbs of produce provided bi-weekly and other nutritious food. In addition, neighbors are connected to nutrition education and our community assistance program (cap)to assist them with state service application assistance. Teachers aid: many children can't afford the most basic school supplies. Without the proper tools to do the work children are challenged to achieve academic success. Many compassionate teachers pay for school supplies out of their own pockets so their students have a more productive learning experience. The teachers and program provides the supplies kids need to succeed. Last year, this program served 8,351 teachers. Community kitchen: workforce development program that provides participants with paid training for living-wage jobs in culinary services. It helps individuals who are struggling with unemployment and poverty develop the skills needed to achieve financial stability and includes hands-on technical and life skills, financial literacy, and job readiness. Case management services are being added to help mitigate barriers that can prevent participants from completing training.