Chief Development Officer for The Foodbank, Inc.
The Foodbank, Inc. is an organization providing emergency food relief, advocacy and re-entry work, and is on a mission to battle hunger in our community. Although Lee Lauren (Alder) Truesdale serves as the organization’s chief development officer, she credits all of those who give their time and energy to The Foodbank, Inc. to help it work toward its goals.
Tell us more about The Foodbank, Inc.
The Foodbank, Inc. was established in 1976 under the umbrella of the Red Cross to provide emergency food relief. In 2004, we became a stand-alone nonprofit. Each year we supply over 15 million pounds of food to a network of nearly 100 local nonprofits that feed communities across Montgomery, Greene and Preble counties. We have recently expanded our mission to “Eliminating hunger and its root causes.” We will launch our new strategic plan in 2023, which focuses on creating a hunger-free community by addressing three pillars that impact food insecurity and its root causes. These pillars are re-entry work; equity, diversity, and inclusion work; and advocacy.
What led to the creation of The Foodbank, Inc.?
The Foodbank is one of 12 foodbanks across Ohio and one of 206 across the nation. We do not work in a silo, rather, we work collaboratively with over 100 other local nonprofits toward the pursuit of our vision, “No one should go hungry.” Yet, foodbanking is still a relatively new concept. Shortly after our inception as a program under the Red Cross in 1976, there were only 12 foodbanks in the United States. Our team likes to think of The Foodbank as a central warehouse, like a Sam’s Club or a Costco; our job is to acquire food, both through donations and wholesale food purchases, and distribute that food to other nonprofits who feed the community directly. We operate a handful of outreach programs, too, like our Mobile Farmer’s Markets, senior food boxes, children’s weekend meal packs and drive-thru. Any program we operate is in place to meet an identified gap in service.
What are some of the projects under The Foodbank, Inc. umbrella that support your mission?
An additional exciting part of our work is our community garden. Our property is located at the Interstate 75-state Route 35 interchange. We purchased our lot for $5 through the city of Dayton’s Lot Links program in 2013. That purchase afforded us not only a great plot of land in a wonderful part of the community, but also a fenced-in former parking lot. Over the years, this lot has been transformed into a large garden space with 70 raised beds, a 6,000-square-foot aquaponics system, an in-vessel composter made of a recycled shipping container and a haven for pollinators! We grow a wide variety of living lettuces and herbs for distribution to local residents in our greenhouse, and work to beautify what was once a big patch of blacktop by growing pollinator friendly flowers and providing space to grow and harvest a wide variety of tomatoes, peppers and green beans.
How can readers donate to and support The Foodbank, Inc.?
There are a lot of ways to support our team’s work! Donating time through volunteering, donating funds to support our mission (every $1 will provide five meals!) and following us on social media (@thefoodbankinc) are just a few ways to help us eliminate hunger and its root causes! Our team also loves to give tours of our warehouse and garden space. To schedule a tour, give us a call at 937-461-0265 x13!
