Category: COVID19

ALABAMA, May 14, 2020 –​ A​labama Food Bank Association today announced it received critical support from ​Wind Creek Hospitality​ to help provide 250,000 meals to Alabama families during the COVID-19 pandemic. This donation comes at a critical time for food banks in Alabama as they respond to a greater need during this unprecedented crisis. Children have lost the school meals they depend on, families are struggling with lost wages, and seniors are more at risk for hunger than ever before.

The Alabama Food Bank Association is grateful to Wind Creek for their tremendous support of Alabama communities. “Because of the generous support from Wind Creek, our food banks are able to serve families experiencing economic crisis during this pandemic,” said Laura Lester, executive director of the Alabama Food Bank Association. “Our network’s hunger-relief programs help deliver millions of pounds of nutritious food to the communities we serve across Alabama.”

Wind Creek’s Director of Public Relations, Magi Williams, explained the donation is all about being a good neighbor. “Wind Creek isn’t on the front lines of the pandemic crisis, but we want to support those who are. We’re proud to come alongside the Alabama Food Bank Association in providing food and hope to families and children who need it most.”

About Alabama Food Bank Association

The Alabama Food Bank Association works to end hunger by assisting the food bank network in obtaining more food and funds, fostering public awareness of the food banks’ mission, and creating partnerships to help alleviate hunger in Alabama. Every day, our eight members in Alabama (Community Food Bank of Central Alabama, Feeding the Gulf Coast, Food Bank of East Alabama, Food Bank of North Alabama, Montgomery Area Food Bank, Selma Food Bank, West Alabama Food Bank, Wiregrass Area Food Bank) partner with a statewide network of food donors, emergency food pantries, and soup kitchens to provide food to hungry people. Fighting hunger requires significant funding for every step of the process—from acquiring food, to storing the food, to transporting the food to people in need. Learn more at​ ​alfba.org​.

About Wind Creek

Wind Creek Hospitality is an authority of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Wind Creek Hospitality manages the Tribe’s gaming facilities including: Wind Creek Atmore, Wind Creek Wetumpka, Wind Creek Montgomery, Wind Creek Bethlehem, Wa She Shu Casino in Nevada, Renaissance Aruba Resort & Casino, Renaissance Curacao Resort & Casino, WindCreekCasino.com, as well as racetracks in Alabama and Florida. The Poarch Band of Creek Indians is the only federally recognized Indian Tribe in the state of Alabama, operating as a sovereign nation with its own system of government and bylaws. The Tribe operates a variety of economic enterprises, which employ thousands.

The COVID-19 Effect on Alabama & Georgia Nonprofits The research project “The COVID-19 Effect on Alabama and Georgia Nonprofits”, conducted by Auburn University’s Cary Center and the Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies Program, wants to better understand the greatest needs of the nonprofit sector in Alabama and Georgia due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We hope you can participate in a short survey on how the pandemic has affected your nonprofit. The survey will take 5-7 minutes to complete and includes 15 questions, focusing on fundraising, the need for and ability to perform services, and your concerns for the coming weeks. The results will only be shared in aggregate and your identity will not be linked to your responses.  We will use the results to provide real-time data to government officials, foundations, and other decision-makers about the current economic conditions facing nonprofits and the need for immediate and long-term support in order to ensure the ongoing provision of critical services in Alabama and Georgia. The results of this survey will educate decision-makers on how to best allocate resources to nonprofits in the coming months, e.g. the CARES Act.  We thank the University of San Diego and The Nonprofit Institute for creating the survey and the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) for sharing it with its membership. To access the survey, scan the QR code or click the blue button below.   For any questions regarding this survey, please contact Brittany Branyon at branyba@auburn.edu. Complete Survey

Register for the webinar here.

The Hunger Solutions Institute would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our End Child Hunger in Alabama partners at the Department of Human Resources and the Alabama Department of Education for working tirelessly to make Alabama one of the first states in the nation to implement Pandemic-EBT!

Pandemic EBT to Feed Children during COVID-19 National Emergency (Washington, D.C., April 22, 2020) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today announced Alabama has been approved to operate Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT), a new program authorized by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), signed by President Trump, which provides assistance to families of children eligible for free or reduced-price meals dealing with school closures.   Background:Alabama will be able to operate Pandemic EBT, a supplemental food purchasing benefit to current SNAP participants and as a new EBT benefit to other eligible households to offset the cost of meals that would have otherwise been consumed at school. For the 2019-2020 school year, Alabama had approximately 445,000 children eligible for free-and reduced-priced lunch, or about 62% of children in participating schools. Previous announcements of approvals for Pandemic EBT include: Michigan, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Arizona, and Illinois.   Under FFCRA, states have the option to submit a plan to the Secretary of Agriculture for providing these benefits to SNAP and non-SNAP households with children who have temporarily lost access to free or reduced-price school meals due to pandemic-related school closures. State agencies may operate Pandemic EBT when a school is closed for at least five consecutive days during a public health emergency designation during which the school would otherwise be in session.   The implementation of Pandemic EBT is in line with USDA’s commitment to keep Americans safe, secure, and healthy during this national emergency and to keep kids fed when schools are closed. USDA is working with states and local authorities to ensure schools and other program operators can continue to feed children. This latest action complements previously-announced flexibilities for the child nutrition programs that:Allow parents and guardians to pick up meals to bring home to their kids;Temporarily waive meal times requirements to make it easier to pick up multiple-days’ worth of meals at once;Allow meals be served in non-congregate settings to support social distancing;Waive the requirement that afterschool meals and snacks served through certain programs be accompanied by educational activities to minimize exposure to the novel coronavirus; andAllow states, on an individual state-by-state basis, to serve free meals to children in all areas, rather than only those in areas where at least half of students receive free or reduced-price meals.Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of actions that USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service has taken to uphold the USDA’s commitment to “Do Right and Feed Everyone” during this national emergency. Other actions include:Launching a new coronavirus webpage to proactively inform the public about USDA’s efforts to keep children and families fed;Providing more than one million meals a week through public-private partnership Meals to You;Increasing access to online purchasing by expanding the online purchasing pilot to more than half of all SNAP households;Debuting “Meals for Kids” interactive site finder – to help families find meals for children while schools are closed across more than 35,000 locations;Allowing states to issue emergency supplemental SNAP benefits totaling more than $2 billion per month to increase recipients’ purchasing power;Collecting solutions to feeding children impacted through feedingkids@usda.gov; andProviding more than 1,500 administrative flexibilities in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to allow for social distancing.These actions and more are part of USDA’s focus on service during the COVID-19 outbreak. To learn more about FNS’s response to COVID-19, visit www.fns.usda.gov/coronavirus.USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) administers 15 nutrition assistance programs that leverage American’s agricultural abundance to ensure children and low-income individuals and families have nutritious food to eat. FNS also co-develops the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which provide science-based nutrition recommendations and serve as the cornerstone of federal nutrition policy.

Check out these resources for organizations providing meal services:

Lunch Assist‘s COVID-19 Resource Page provides information about nationwide waivers, worker safety toolkits, leadership tools, and social media resources to support your endeavors getting meals to Alabama children!

School Food Handler has included a COVID-19 Resource Page with useful information, such as Standards of Practice for maintaining the health and safety of staff and participating families. They also provide meal safety inserts to include with pick-up or delivered food items.

No Kid Hungry hosted a free webinar today to provide organizations offering meal services for children with wisdom from the proverbial “trenches.” Three providers shared their experience providing non-congregate meal services during the novel coronavirus pandemic:

Beth Morris – Lynchburg City Schools (VA)

Format: Meal Pick-Up and Delivery Options

• 4 Sites were selected for their capacity to serve large numbers and accessibility to families.
• Meal service is provided Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
• Meal pick up provides 2 breakfasts and 2 lunches (6 days of breakfast and lunch per week total). All breakfasts are cold items and shelf-stable, and one of the lunches is a hot ready-to-eat lunch, which allowed the school district to utilize hot meal items they current had.
• Partnered with LCS Transportation – 29 buses deliver meals on elementary school bus routes. Bus routes and delivery times are posted on the district website.
• Developed a partnership with Parks and Recreation: 3 vans deliver to housing communities with high population of students, and 6 neighborhood community centers provide curb-side pick up locations
• Documentation: parents sign-out food items and write down the names of children for whom they are picking up meals.
• Safety: Social distancing is practiced during prep (moved into the school dining hall for more room between employees). All staff wear gloves and masks, wash hands at least once every 45 minutes

Beth Krause – Ithaca City School District

Format: Meal Delivery

• Each week, parents complete a Google Form on the school website requesting meals (they can also call 211 and someone will assist them in completing the form).
• Information is sent out to parents via email or text message with instructions for food safety/preparation.
• Information about meal delivery was posted to the district website and was publicized on the local news.
• Meals are prepared the day before from shelf-stable items.
• Coolers are lined up, sanitized, and filled with items before 6am.
• Coolers and milk is packed on buses. A runner is put on the bus to drop off the meals on the door step at each location.
• Census information forms are provided with meals.
• This school district has also used this program to deliver books, diapers and formula, etc.
• Safety: All work surfaces are sanitized hourly. No one except kitchen staff are allowed in the building.

Heidi Davis – Second Harvest Food Bank (Northeast TN)

Format: Community Choice Model (Rural Community)

• All meals are shelf stable or thaw-and-serve.
• Families may opt to pick up or receive delivery – families expressed need by calling into a community center.
• Utilized an app for documentation and each child receiving meals had a unique pin number that was entered when the meal was received. (May need a back up recording method for pin numbers in areas that are rural and have unreliable cell phone service/internet connectivity).
• Recommendation: Talk to members of the community to get feedback about needs and potential partnerships.

See a recording of the webinar here.

With all of the chaos of the novel coronavirus pandemic, it may be easy to overlook the 2020 Census. But making sure every Alabama child is counted means more funding for the state to ensure their future needs are met!

Please join VOICES for Alabama’s Children in their push to remind Alabama families to take the census.

Click the link above for media tool kits, printable posters, and palm cards. These simple graphics can be added to your organization’s emails as a concise reminder to families that completion of the 2020 Census is crucial to making sure Alabama receives the funding and programs it needs!

According to my2020census.gov, the following Alabama counties currently have a response rate of less than 41%: Coosa, Perry, Sumter, Wilcox, Macon, Pike, Greene, Marengo, Washington, Monroe, Conecuh, and Lowndes. (Counties in bold currently have less than 31% response rate.) Please help us target these counties and increase the response rate so every child is counted!

If you are a non-profit providing food services to your local community during the novel coronavirus crisis, please consult the following resources to see if you may be eligible for grant funding from Alabama community foundations:

Central Alabama Community Foundation Grant

Community Foundation of NorthEast Alabama

Community Foundation of South Alabama

Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville

Community Foundation for Greater Birmingham

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed into law on March 27th, and it includes relief options available to the non-profit community. These include the Paycheck Protection Program, the Expanded Economic Injury Disaster Loan and Emergency Grants, and the Midsize Loan program. (Source)

Download the chart, from the National Council of NonProfits, here:

For additional tips on applying for non-profit relief funds, please take a look at this article from Independent Sector.