Members of The Community Foundation’s Montgomery County Advisory Board, staff, and Sharing Montgomery donors recently visited with community partners in Montgomery County’s East-County region – one of the “Priority Neighborhoods” identified by The Community Foundation as part of its new 10-year strategic plan. The event follows a similar visit with Up-County partners that took place last November.
The day began at Manna Food Center’s headquarters in Silver Spring, where the group met with a panel of nonprofit leaders who have been at the forefront of the battle against food insecurity in Montgomery County. A battle that they say has continued, even as COVID cases have declined.
“Let’s not have amnesia about what we experienced during the pandemic,” Jackie DeCarlo, CEO of Manna Food Center shared. “As one our volunteers shared ‘I hope we never go back to normal; the pandemic made me realize that -- for a lot of people -- normal just wasn’t working”.
Despite the challenges, these partners have only continued to innovate. Rev. Kendra Smith, of East County Hub led by Kingdom Fellowship, and Pat Drumming, Executive Director of Rainbow Community Development Center, outlined how they work collaboratively with local businesses, grocery stores, and farmers to rescue thousands of pounds food. DeCarlo explained how Manna Food Center now partners with local ethnic food markets to establish a voucher system that allows families to obtain culturally appropriate foods to make homecooked meals while also supporting critical local businesses.
“Essentially, we’re working with what already exists to recreate a new food system,” Rev. Kendra Smith of East County Hub of Kingdom Fellowship explained. “One that has the flexibility to respond to our community’s needs.”
The panel expressed gratitude to the donors of Sharing Montgomery and Food for Montgomery for their extraordinary support in recent years. They further highlighted how major investments over the last few years enabled them to secure shared cold storage – increasing their capacity to collect, store, and distribute perishable food items like meat and fresh produce.
“We can’t continue to look at food insecurity in isolation,” Rev. Smith explained. “Many of the families we’re serving are multi-generational. We need to examine all the social determinants of health and start having conversations about how we can work together and collaborate to address the root causes behind the needs that these families have.”
After a quick tour of the Manna Food Center’s choice pantry, the group then moved on to Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville, MD, where they met with representatives from local nonprofits working to promote economic mobility and higher education: IMPACT Silver Spring, College Tracks and the Achieving College Excellence & Success (ACES) partnership of Montgomery College, the Universities at Shady Grove, and Montgomery County Public Schools.
Much like the safety-net partners, these nonprofit leaders had to continuously pivot and innovate since the outbreak of COVID. For IMPACT Silver Spring, that meant finding ways to provide direct cash transfers so families in crisis could meet their needs more efficiently (an effort supported by The Community Foundation’s Neighbors in Need Montgomery Fund). Meanwhile, CollegeTracks and ACES initially struggled to connect with students virtually while schools were operating remotely but ultimately found their efforts made them even more accessible.
“We were able to engage with their families in ways that we’d never done before,” explained Mecha Inman, CEO of College Tracks. “We were able to directly answer their questions about the college application process and help them become better informed about how to support and advocate for their students.”
Andres Maldonado, Assistant Director of ACES, further shared how ACES expanded their outreach to better serve students and their families – ensuring that students not only had access to academic support, but also important resources like food, employment opportunities, and mental health services.
In response to how residents are helping their families and neighborhoods recover, Michael Rubin, Interim Director of IMPACT Silver Spring, shared how they are advancing worker collaboratives, empowering people with the resources and capital they need to start new enterprises that will ultimately help them on the pathway out of poverty and keep wealth in our local economy.
“We are not going to safety net ourselves out of the racial wealth gap. We are not going to safety net ourselves out of poverty,” Rubin shared. “We have to do things differently.”
Following the tour, Anna Hargrave, Executive Director for Montgomery County for the Greater Washington Community Foundation, reflected on two key takeaways:
While the nonprofit partners we heard from have different missions, there is a common practice that has fueled their many accomplishments; they authentically listen to the community, making sure residents’ voices are driving change.
Knowing the federal pandemic relief dollars are dwindling, we must empower our local nonprofits with flexible support they will need to further meet the urgent needs plus advocate for policy changes that will help our lowest-income neighbors who were hit hardest by the pandemic and are still struggling to recover.
To learn more about upcoming in-person and virtual visits plus other learning opportunities, contact Olivia Hsu at ohsu@thecommunityfoundation.org.