September 2024

Welcome to the Member Services Newsletter for the month of September.

Each month you will find important updates and reminders, featured articles, product spotlights, nutrition resources, network highlights, and much more!

Emergency Food Funding Update



Click here to read a letter from Foodlink's CEO, Julia Tedesco, in response to recent United Way funding changes.

Calendar



September 22nd

Autumn Equinox

October 14th

Indigenous People's Day

Foodlink Closed

2024 SNAP Minimum Benefit Letter

Foodlink and other food banks across the state have proudly signed on to a letter to the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), advocating for a $100 minimum in benefits for all SNAP recipients. The work we collectively do for the emergency food system helps put food on the table for thousands of our neighbors in the Rochester and Finger Lakes region. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), however, is our nation's first line of defense against food insecurity. Higher SNAP benefit levels, enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, have been proven to reduce poverty and food insecurity rates. We believe that a much-needed boost to the minimum amount ($23) is strongly needed during a time when client visits to our network of pantries and meal programs are on the rise.

The letter and sign on form can be found here. We would greatly appreciate it if you considered adding your organization's name to the letter by Thursday, Sept. 5. Thank you for your advocacy and your continued partnership!

Shopping Tip: HPNAP Product Codes

Finding it difficult to find HPNAP eligible product? Try using the search feature to find these products faster! Type "HP" in the Item No. field to find HPNAP Purchased products or "HD" to find HPNAP Donated products. Click search and all products that start with "HP" or "HD" will appear.

School Pantries

It is that time of year for students to sharpen pencils and fill their backpacks. Many of our students and families deal with food insecurity. Fortunately, several schools in the Foodlink ten county area have food pantries. School pantries offer a critical lifeline for low-income families with children aged 0-18. Conveniently located on or near school campuses, they provide ongoing food assistance with established distribution schedules.

Compassionate individuals play a crucial role in providing food assistance to children enrolled in the district and their families. Referrals to the pantry come from school site coordinators, school counselors, teachers, and administrators thus ensuring that support reaches those who need it most.

Susan Ladd, Principal of Henry Hudson School 28, expresses her gratitude for the partnership between her school and Foodlink. In the video above, she discusses how the school food pantry has been a vital resource for families facing food insecurity.

Foodlink Welcomes MINO!

Mothers In Need of Others (MINO: pronounced “minnow”) is a short-term emergency assistance program founded in March of 2004, to provide basic necessities to families in crisis in an effort to alleviate some of their stress and help their budgets to stretch further. MINO has grown over the past twenty years. The program now serves case managers and client representatives from over 185 agencies, churches, schools, hospitals, and health care programs in Monroe County who pick up the items at our Resource Room in the Foodlink building and deliver them to their clients during their regularly scheduled visits.

In March of 2024, Maria was hired by Foodlink to lead a Health and Wellness Program for our organization. The plan is for MINO to be fully integrated into Foodlink as the Health and Wellness program by January 2025. At that time, Foodlink members will be able to access more Health & Wellness products starting with personal hygiene kits with future expansion into baby products and cleaning supplies. Our goal is to provide a greater volume of Health & Wellness products to our members while also increasing the variety of these items on the shopping list.

During this transition, MINO is not currently able to fill the large-scale needs of Foodlink's current members, but we are working diligently to that goal. Through the end of the 2024 calendar year, MINO will continue to serve individual families through their client representative distribution model. We look forward to rolling out our new Health & Wellness program in January 2025.

Contact Member Services

memberservices@foodlinkny.org

(585) 413-5090