The Board of Directors of Food for Greater Elgin met for their November meeting and fall retreat. Highlights of the board meeting included discussion on:
- Steadily increasing usage of our services to meet the food needs of people who need help.
- A good news-bad news financial report that celebrated our third straight month of over $100,000 in revenues (the good news) but noting that $95,000 of that was from a restricted grant that can only be used for stated purposes (to buy a new truck). Thank you, Northern Illinois Food Bank for the grant, but we are seriously behind in raising money for our fall and winter purchases of food.
- Celebrated Danny Flores joining our staff as our Director of Community Relations, basically doing outreach work in the community to help our efforts to get food to those in need.
- Reviewed our plans for Giving Tuesday which include a new donation page on our website and a collection of stories from donors and guests on how they appreciate gifts that keep giving in their lives.
The Board then went into a three-hour retreat to bring new board members ‘on board’ in both their understanding of our mission and work and to begin work on 2022. We opened with a presentation by Dr. Michael Montgomery on the ‘State of Hunger’ in our area in 2021. His report could be summarized in observing that the need has not gone away and the societal dislocations brought about by the pandemic and subsequent economic dislocation will take some time to work through.
The Board then broke into small groups to focus upon key issues before us:
- Community outreach in how we reach out to the non-English speaking members of our communities. This includes translating what we do, offering culturally appropriate foods, and making sure that the people we serve have a ‘seat at the table’ as we make decisions that shape their lies.
- Facility Improvement. We plan on obtaining the other half of the building in early 2022 and have formed a committee that will examine our needs, physical possibilities with the expanded structure, and new possibilities for our work.
- Fundraising, specifically about a new ‘virtual food drive’ to be held in February and March.
The groups reported back to one another, noted action steps, and received a brief introduction to what makes a good board member from Erik Anderson.
The meeting closed with a significant discussion on whether we should have geographic boundaries for the people whom we serve. Currently, everyone in need who lives in Elgin, South Elgin East, and West Dundee are eligible for food from us. These sorts of boundaries were hot topics when we were formed back in 2010-11, but are now seen as less important and often difficult to work with. What about the person who works in Elgin in a low-paying job and lives in a different city whose food pantries are not open when they are able to go shop? Over half of the food pantries in the Northern Illinois Food Bank system no longer have geographic boundaries, and NIFB is encouraging all pantries to drop that requirement. The Board had a lively discussion (what would be the financial effect? How would this effect our neighboring food pantries and the variety of people and organizations that are our neighbors?).
The Board will revisit the topic in December.