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Passion, vision, defined mission make nonprofits click
Passion, vision, defined mission make nonprofits click
©by Leo Adam Biga
Appearing in the May 2019 edition of The Reader (www.thereader.com)
Nonprofits thrive when they find a community niche no one else serves. Next comes getting influencers and supporters to catch their vision and invest in the mission. The entrepreneurs behind the six Omaha nonprofits featured here don’t lead the largest or the most well-known organizations. But each oversees a distinct work borne of passion and vision that serves a specific population. Each entity stands apart from the crowded nonprofit field by filling a need or gap that otherwise wouldn’t be satisfied.
Sweat and soul make these nonprofits click. It all starts and ends with the people who dreamed them up. Each founder is still at the helm, refining the vision, steadying the course, and retelling the story.
The Bike Union and Coffee
As mentoring efforts go, Bike Union and Coffee follows an unconventional path not unlike that of founder-executive director, Miah Sommer.
For starters, its human services are intentionally scaled-down to serve a handful of young people. Bigger isn’t always better the way Sommer sees it.
“There’s a point of diminishing returns,” he said. “Do we want numbers to feel good about how many we’re serving or do we want results? We’ll only grow if we feel that makes the most sense.”
Union-Coffee mentors mainly young adults who’ve aged out of foster care. Most have a history of trauma. They struggle reentering society as independent young men and women. Devoting attention to a few clients, Sommer said, “hasn’t been real popular with some funders, but I really think that’s the only way to tackle trauma. I want to make relationship-based programming. In some way that’s what I was lacking at their age – meaningful adult mentor relationships.”
Clients learn social-job skills working alongside staff and volunteers and dealing with customers at this combo repair shop and coffeehouse at 1818 Dodge Street. Experts provide GED preparation, reading comprehension, financial literacy and other services.
Mindfulness meditation and cooking-nutrition classes are offered participants.
Bike repair and coffee revenues help fund operations.
Though Sommer was never in the system, he grew up adrift and estranged. He dropped out of high school, only earning his GED at 27. He majored in history and religion at college. He turned a serious cycling passion into a retail career that spawned a recreational trek biking program for inner city youth, BUMP. It’s now part of his social entrepreneurship mentoring endeavor.
“I left my job to start this in 2015 with a month’s salary, a wife, kids and a house, so I had to make it happen. I blinded myself to all the challenges of starting a nonprofit that is also a business.”
Employment program participants are referred by Project Everlast and Bridge to Independence. Originally designed for new cohorts of four mentees to graduate every 12 months, real life dictates a looser timetable.
“Now we understand this is a for-keeps relationship we need to stay involved in. We might have five in the program right now, but ten might come through the door each week needing services. Some don’t go through the 12 months. They just aren’t ready to work on themselves or they exit early when they find another job. Others stay 16 months until they’re ready to move on.”
“Until they’re ready” is the new mantra.
There are breakthroughs and setbacks. The camaraderie and training, including peer-to-peer mentoring, keep drawing participants in.
“Some just come to hang around. Others need help with problems they’re having. Even the kids that have been fired still come back. It’s a safe place for them, It’s a place where they feel accepted. It’s like a big family.”
Illegal or threatening behaviors are not tolerated.
“Generally, those kids are weeded out at about three months,” Sommer said. “They usually end up leaving on their own free will.”
For those who stick it out, there’s no hard and fast goal.
“The programming is designed to achieve what they want to achieve. There’s no, you’ll do this, this, this and this. It’s like, where do you see yourself? It works differently for different people.”
The focus is on getting participants to overcome doubts, face fears and achieve realistic goals.
“They come from a place where they’ve been told they can’t do things or they tell themselves they can’t do things. We’re all about telling them you can do this thing. They end up with all these small victories.”
Rites of passage moments like getting a driver’s license, opening a bank account, graduating high school, getting a GED, starting college and finding steady employment are celebrated, he said, because those “are huge” considering where clients have been.
“Each is a step in the right direction and makes them feel more connected to society,” he said. “Belonging and connecting and doing things that are societal norms is real important. Everybody has a need to belong and the people we serve are no different. They want the same things everybody else does. It’s not a question of ability, it’s a question of opportunity.”
The public can support the effort just by bringing in a bike, buying coffee and interacting with participants.
“It’s great to like us on Facebook” Sommer said, “but this doesn’t work if people don’t come in.”
Just don’t confuse what happens there with charity.
“We don’t do this out of pity. We do this out of solidarity and standing on the margins with young people whose resilience to keep moving forward is pretty pronounced.”
Visit http://www.thebikeunion.org.
Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue
Beth Ostdiek Smith was a 59-year-old former travel industry professional and nonprofit executive when she launched an organization poised at the intersection of food waste, hunger, access and healthy eating.
The core mission of Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue (SGPFR) is capturing and redistributing fresh and prepared edibles – 1.6 million pounds and counting since 2013.
“We’re not taking it for us. We don’t warehouse anything,” Smith said.” As fresh as everything we get, our clients get it.”
Four refrigerated trucks wrapped in the logo of an urchin girl holding a spoon un on a tight schedule. Professional drivers-food handlers make all the pickups-deliveries.
“In this perishable food business,” she said, “you have to show up when you say you’ll show up.”
Her service redirects some metro food waste – an estimated 40 percent of food ends up in landfills – to people who need it, including an estimated 20 percent of children who otherwise go to bed hungry.
She started Grace to bridge the excess-want gap.
“I noticed there was always excess food at events. I asked around Omaha and nobody was doing food rescue at scale. I took a leap of faith and put Saving Grace together. It’s a nonprofit business that provides a charitable service to our community.”
She based it on an Arizona food rescue program– hiring away its operations director, Judy Rydberg.
Smith’s networking has gotten hotels, conventions centers, restaurant chains, grocers and wholesale food suppliers to consistently donate their excess.
“That’s the movement we’re trying to have happen. It takes the community to do that. My expertise is really bringing people together I’m a builder and entrepreneur.”
The organization also has a mission to raise awareness around food waste and hunger. As it’s neither a pantry nor a food bank, Smith said, “it’s a different model than everybody’s used to.” It’s why she spends much time “explaining who we are and what we do.”
She recruits most food donors but more are calling her. Major recipients include pantries.
“We get the right food to them by doing a food match based on client needs. They’re not having to go out and source all this food. We bring it to them.”
Heart Ministry Center Pantry in North Omaha is a primary user. Grace will supply even more food there once the center’s expanded pantry opens.
“For some of our larger nonprofit partners we are just a small portion of the food they give out because they purchase from Food Bank of the Heartland. Others don’t qualify for the Food Bank because they’re too small and so we are their only source for food.”
Education efforts encourage people to make better choices in shopping for food in order to reduce waste.
“We’re trying to deliver those messages through our Food for Thought programs,” Smith said.
A recent program partnered with Hillside Solutions on excess food as composte.
Saving Grace is also identifying “on that whole food chain where excess should go and ways to get it to more people,” Smith said, including those who don’t quality for a panty but need food assistance.
Smith plans visiting perishable food rescues to assess what they do and envisions a national food rescue consortium for sharing best practices.
She doesn’t want o grow just for growth’s sake.
“We’ll always be lean and mean. We get a lot of in-kind donations.”
Grants tend to follow SGPFR’s clear, easy-to-track outcomes. Smith would like more multi-year grants to fund a reserve or endowment. She’s looking to build a revenue stream by partnering with a local brewer who would make beer out of excess bread and retail it.
A September 30 dinner and wine pairing at Dante Pizzeria will celebrate Saving Grace’s sixth anniversary.
Smith acknowledges her efffort is one piece in a collaborative mosaic addressing food insecurity.
“We cant be everything to everyone. We don’t do all of it. But we have a model that works for a lot of it.”
Visit savinggracefoodrescue.org.
Intercultural Senior Center
After years learning how nonprofits work at One World Community Health, Carolina Padilla ran the Latino Resource Center, which assists young women and families. When some women requested services for their aging immigrant mothers isolated by language and transportation barriers, she realized the organization was ill-equipped to do so. Wanting to address this community need going unmet, she left to found the Intercultural Senior Center (ISC) in 2009 with help from the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging.
“I found what I really wanted to do,” said Padilla. “I thought, I have to do this and I’m going to make this happen whatever it takes. Then I realized I could do it.”
Working with immigrant and migrant elders appealed to Padilla because in her native Guatemala she lost her own mother at age 6 and was raised by aged aunts.
“They made my life. I always felt strongly that one day I will give back in some way.”
She also identified with the challenges newcomers face having moved to the U.S. with her husband and children. Thus, she created “a place where people share what it means coming to a different country and having to adjust to many cultural differences.”
“They come to share their thoughts and their lives.”
The center started exceedingly small – Padilla did everything herself – and operated from leased South Omaha sites always short on space.
Her mentor and former One World boss, Mary Lee Fitzsimmmons, guided the center in obtaining its 501 C3 status and finding donors.
“Great foundations have been behind us helping us grow our membership, programs and services,” Padilla said. “When we started, we focused just on the basics serving maybe five or ten people a day and 20 to 25 in a week. Right now we have 60, 80 even 100 people a day and 400 a week.”
There’s no participation or membership fee. As the numbers have grown, so has diversity, especially since ISC added senior refugees to its service outreach. On any given day, this melting pot accommodates seniors from two dozen or more nations.
Center programs include:
ESL classes
Basic computer skill classes
Health-wellness classes
Yoga
Case managed social work
A monthly pantry
Door to door transportation
Interpreters help breech language divides.
After four sites in nine years Padilla asked her board to lead a $6.3 million capital campaign to give ISC a home of its own.
“They helped me get that dream.”
ISC moved into its new 22,000 square foot home at 5545 Center Street in March after extensive remodeling to the structure. There’s more room than ISC has ever had, including dedicated spaces for classes and
private conference rooms for social services .
“I’m so happy and proud of what we have.”
More meaningful than the facilities, Padilla said, participants “have each other.” “This center gets them out of isolation. It provides opportunities to learn, to stay active. It becomes people’s second home.
“Coming here lets them see they still have so much to do. It helps them not become a burden to their families.
People are really happy here. They feel welcomed. It’s a warm place. Our staff is welcoming. They love our seniors. Sure, we have programming and a structure, but it’s more about the way people feel here.”
ISC partners create intergenerational opportunities between seniors and young people.
“We work very closely with UNO’s Service Learning program. Students come here and get involved in different activities and programs year-round. Elementary, middle and high school students participate in those projects. Youth interact with seniors making art, exercising, playing games, sharing stories.
“College and university nursing students work with seniors in our wellness program. It’s a way for students to put their skills into practice and learn what it is to be around diversity.”
Longtime ISC partner Big Garden is moving raised beds from the center’s previous site to the new location “so our seniors can garden again,” Padilla said. “We’re a grassroots organization. We depend on partnerships. Partnering allows us to better serve the community. That’s the beauty of doing things together.
“What we have built is the base and we’re just trying to get better. There’s still so many things to do to improve serving the aging population.”
She’d like to add physical therapy and additional wellness components.
Padilla is banking on ISC receiving accreditation from the National Council on Aging.
“I think this will help our organization to be seen in a different way, so we can bring more resources to the center
Though she has a staff of 18, she personally keeps close tabs on operations.
“I am hands-on in every single thing that goes on here.”
Padilla said working with seniors sparks “a new appreciation for life.”
“It’s an honor to serve this community. It’s a mission I feel. It’s not a job – it’s part of me.”
Making it all worthwhile is having octogenarians become citizens. learn to write their name, develop English fluency and earn their GED.
“That’s big and we are making that possible.”
If the center’s diversity has taught her anything, she said, it’s that “regardless of educational-cultural backgrounds and financial stability, all of our seniors have amazing stories of happiness, struggles and hard work and they all have the need to be loved and to hold someone’s hand.”
Then there’s the balancing act seniors who are transplants to America must negotiate in terms of assimilation versus holding onto native cultural identities. Padilla said the center helps promote mutual respect and understanding of cultures. It’s all about welcoming the stranger and adjusting to new ways.
“It’s difficult, but they do it.”
ISC’s August 22 World Bash fundraiser is at St Robert Bellarmine Church.
Visit http://www.interculturalseniorcenter.org.
Heartland Workers Center
Guatemala native Sergio Sosa won victories for meatpackers as an Omaha Together One Community labor organizer in the early 2000s. He advised Latinos in the packing and hospitality industries in staging mass demonstrations for immigration reform. Flush with success among this constituency, he launched Heartland Workers Center (HWC) in 2009.
“The vision was to improve the lives of Latino-Latina immigrants in the Heartland,” said Sosa, “Our strategic mission’s major programs are leadership development, workers rights and civic engagement.”
Sosa and his team of community organizers conduct their work in the streets, in people’s homes, at community centers, churches and schools.
“We do not provide services. If we do, it’s only to affect what we do for people who will be part of the solution of their own problems. Our rule number one is never do for others what they can for themselves.”
With lead organizer Abbie Kretz, Sosa “built the capacity of the center, got the trust of major funders, went from a couple employees to almost 20 and expanded from one site, in South Omaha, to offices across the state.”
The first ever South Omaha Political Convention followed in 2015. The biennial event is expected to draw 1,000 participants when it happens again November 10.
Year-round civic engagement revolves around statewide Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts that mobilize minorities to register, vote and run for elected office.
A major emphasis, Sosa said. is “bringing leaders from rural and urban areas together to think of this as one state.” “Economically,” he said, “the goal is to find investments to improve communities in terms of housing, infrastructure, education.”
Another focus is advocating immigration reform and workers rights issues in the Unicameral.
“We train people how to testify before state legislators and how the Unicameral works,” he said.
Recently, HWC activists supported bills preserving SNAP benefits and increasing worker’s wages from tips and granting protection from employer retaliation.
Before Gabriela Pedroza became a HWC organizer, Sosa said, she never even visited Lincoln. “But now she’s testified, trained others to testify and knows the ins and outs of the Unicameral. Next year she will be in charge of the Unicameral effort.
“That’s how change happens,” said Sosa, adding, “Women are becoming a major voice and catalyst for change. The traditional institutions are not reinventing themselves. That’s why they’re dying. Youth and women-led movements are spawning new institutions with grassroots political power.”
The Center cultivates new leaders. “We teach organizers where they can find leaders,” he said. “It can be through canvassing neighborhoods.” Once captured, HWC “mentors, teaches and activates them.”
On the micro level, he said, “It’s about people investing in their own neighborhoods and communities and being the agents of change themselves rather than waiting for the city to act.” South Omaha’s Brown Park had fallen into disrepair and a coalition of neighbors “are now working with leaders to fix it.”
“People have to learn how to act for themselves,” Abbie Kretz said. “Otherwise, they create dependency on organizers to do those things. It’s learning how processes and power work and building relationships with public officials and nonprofit leaders. You have more capacity and power when you do it collectively.”
In Schuyler, Nebraska, HWC-led efforts increased voter participation by the Latino majority and resulted in
four Latinos in public office, Kretz said. Parents there demanded dual language programs and “a collective of folks from the schools and the community working together got one started.”
“That’s what democracy is all about,” Sosa said. It’s a very patient work, but in the end it pays off.”
HWC has established itself with that steady work.
“By building relationships with people over time they understand who we are and what we do,” Kretz said,
“and that’s helped to build bridges versus burn them.”
“Rural Nebraska doesn’t see us as foreign outsiders coming to their small towns,” Sosa said, “because we hire people from those towns.”
Inroads for inclusive leadership and representation are happening statewide. In Columbus, HWC partners with entrenched organizations on community-wide events. Latinos in Grand Island are now part of the Nebraska State Fair planning committee. Traditional Latino celebrations and memorials are embraced by more towns as part of the fabric of life there.
“So, it’s changing,” said Sosa, who sees it as proof that “if you combine love with power, you get social justice.”
Change starts from within.
“If you don’t change you, nothing around you is going to change. You have to give yourself that permission to dream big,” he said.
Gabriela Pedroza knows from experience.
“That awakening keeps me going,” she said. “Realizing who you are and having that relationship with yourself is hard work and it takes time. But once you start, you want to do it with others. You want others to know you have more power than you think.”
Despite how polarized the U.S. is, Sosa said, “we still have open political spaces that provide an opportunity for compromise and change – and we better be active now in teaching others to do it so we don’t lose it.”
Visit http://www.heartlandworkerscenter.org.
Young Black & Influential/I Be Black Girl
Omaha native Ashlei Spivey has generated two buzz-worthy black-centric empowerment movements that reflect her late mother’s passion.
“My mom and I spent a lot of time talking about, what do you want your life to mean? what does that look like? how do you create impact for folks? So I think I’ve always had that embedded in me,” said Spivey. “Growing up there was a lot of systemic inequity happening around me. There was the richness of the black community but due to racism and oppression also lack of jobs and those things.”
Her father was incarcerated most of her life.
“My mom wanted to protect me from the situation surrounding me and made sure I had every opportunity. I was fortunate to have a parent who really poured into me in a way that added value. She saw all the potential I had.”
Spivey went to college down South, returning to Omaha eight years ago following her mother’s death. “It was very sudden. That was really hard. We were very close. I came back to be the guardian to my sister, who was 12.”
Spivey’s grandmother helps raise her 5-year-old son.
Working at College Possible and Heartland Family Service led to Spivey’s current post at Peter Kiewit Foundation. Wherever she’s worked, she’s been the only or first African-American. “Thinking about empowerment for the people on the receiving end of inequity” led to Young Black & Influential (YBI) in 2015 and I Be Black Girl (iBBG) in 2017.
“YBI was created to say we can affirm black folks doing things for the black community based on our own definition. You don’t have to look, talk, have certain experiences in order to be deemed an influencer. The people we recognize may have a degree or not, may work in a corporate setting or not. may have been incarcerated or not. There’s the whole spectrum
“It’s about supporting, acknowledging and showing leadership in different ways. It’s about creating your own narrative and owning it and affirming this is who I am and no one can take that away or negate that.”
Influencers from the community are recognized at a YBI awards banquet – The next is June 30 at The Living Room in The Mastercraft.
“There are some dynamic folks doing awesome work under the radar. We also do leadership development at the grassroots level. We’ve launched a board training program to get black folks on nonprofit boards. We’re really trying to build power.”
IBBG’s name riffs off the best-selling children’s book Be Boy Buzz celebrating what black boys can be. Spivey sees IBBG as “changing narratives and creating space for black women to have access to different spaces.”
The organization “holds networking events and does programming around things that affect black women and girls,” such as a recent screening of Little.
IBBG’s advisory committee intentionally includes women workIng in philanthropy, Spivey views it as “disrupting power structures.” “We feel like this might be a place where we are creating philanthropists that don’t look like Omaha’s very old, white, male philanthropists now.”
An IBBG Giving Circle with a goal of $10,000 raised $50,000. In May, IBBG is awarding $35,000 in grants to innovative approaches that advance black girls and women. Grant awards will be made annually. New Giving Circle donations are being accepted.
The funding, Spivey said, “is all about making possible seats at the table and building an institution you have to check in with before you do service delivery or interventions for black women and girls in the community.”
Both IBBG and YBI are tapping into “a restored pride in being black, in how we take care of community and how we make decisions about community,” she said. “This is a way people can engage and add value with whatever their investment in the community is.”
Adding stability to these changemaker efforts is fiscal sponsor Women’s Fund of Omaha. “They have been great partners. Allyship is important.”
Spivey’s exploring the addition of entrepreneurship and youth leadership development programs.
“My energy and effort is really building power that not only addresses racism but other intersecting isms people may encounter based on their identity,”
She feels her movements align well with where Black America’s arrived.
“Our people have always wanted to pursue their own vision of success and to help raise up our community. The issue has been access, resources and opportunity – that’s what it’s about. Now people are reenergized on how to have ownership over their community.
“A lot of young leaders are not concerned with assimilating or wanting to perpetuate patriarchy. They want to do things radically different and I think radical change is key. We were always ready – we just didn’t know we were ready. Now people are focused on that collective agenda on how things can be black-led.”
IBBG hosts a June 23 celebratory event at The Venue.
Visit http://www.ibbgomaha.com and http://www.ybiomaha.com.
Read more of Leo Adam Biga’s work at leoadambiga.com.
Feeding the world, nourishing our neighbors, far and near: Howard G. Buffett Foundation and Omaha nonprofits take on hunger and food insecurity
Here is a collection of stories I wrote for the Winter 2014 issue of Metro Quarterly Magazine (http://www.spiritofomaha.com/) that focus on the theme of how responding to a starving world is within our reach. The stories explore the efforts of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and of four Omaha nonprofits – Food Bank of the Heartland, Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue, City Sprouts and No More Empty Pots – in taking on hunger and food insecurity through various programs and activities.
Feeding the world, nourishing our neighbors, far and near:
Howard G. Buffett Foundation and Omaha nonprofits take on hunger and food insecurity
Within Our Reach: A Starving World
40 Chances: Addressing Global Hunger
©by Leo Adam Biga
Appeared in Metro Quarterly Magazine (http://www.spiritofomaha.com/)
Father-son team bearing famous name pen book that calls people to action
Howard G. and Howard W. Buffett want people to know they can make a difference in a hungry world
Giving became synonymous with the Buffett name when Omaha billionaire investor Warren Buffett gave part of his immense wealth to his adult children’s foundations and pledged the remainder to philanthropy in the event of his death. Thus, one of history’s largest personal fortunes is now closely aligned to myriad efforts that address pressing human needs around the world.
The Wizard of Omaha’s eldest son, Howard Graham Buffett, heads a foundation focused on improving the standard of living and quality of life for the world’s most impoverished, marginalized populations. Food security is among the foundation’s top priorities, not surprising given that its namesake chairman-CEO is a farmer with strong roots in his agriculture-rich native Nebraska. He’s also a staunch conservationist and an accomplished photographer.
A former Douglas County Commissioner now living in Decatur, Illinois, where he farms, Howard G. traveled to developing nations as a youth. His late mother, Susie, cultivated a social justice bent in him and his siblings. Those experiences helped shape the work of his Howard G. Buffett Foundation. His travels and the foundation’s work, told through the prism of experiences lived, relationships built and lessons learned, highlight his new book, 40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World.
He co-authored the bestseller with his son and former foundation executive director Howard Warren Buffett, who has extensive experience dealing with international and domestic issues. As a U.S. Department of Defense official he.oversaw ag-based economic stabilization-redevelopment programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a White House policy advisor he co-wrote the President’s cross-sector partnership strategy. The Columbia University lecturer also worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Nations.
Growing up he made many trips with his father to challenging places. Like his old man he is a farmer, too, with a spread near Tekamah.
Now or never
The book by this father-son team calls readers to take action and do something good for the world, even if it’s in your own backyard. The authors proffer principles for doing and giving and making a lasting impact with the limited chances you’re granted in a lifetime.
“If there’s an overriding thought it’s that anybody can do something. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is, it’s just doing something” that counts,” says Howard G. He adds, “Don’t be afraid to take risks. Even going down to your local food pantry to volunteer might be a risk for somebody. Make a long-term commitment – don’t just do it to see what it’s like. That message is to NGOs and foundations and everybody who works in any kind of philanthropic area.
“Figure it out, focus on it and then stick with it.”
The Buffetts hope their book gives people a sense of urgency to act.
“The truth is most of us just go through life,” Howard G. says. “We don’t think about the fact that by time we get out of college and get a little experience we’ve probably got 40 years to really make a positive impact. That’s our prime. Just do it right. We cant take stuff back and eventually we do run out of time. That’s what the title is about.”
“That gets to the core of what 40 Chances is – about having a limited number of opportunities to do the best job we can in our life,” Howard W. says. “And that can be being the best mother or father, being the best mentor, being the best resident of a neighborhood or community. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just that you seize those opportunities.”
Lessons learned
Much of the Buffetts’ work plays out overseas, where the West’s expectations or assumptions don’t hold much currency amid the developing world’s harsh realities. Howard G.’s seen many entities try to come up with First World solutions for Third World problems, but the metrics don’t always apply. The consequences of planting the wrong seed crop for a certain climate or soil in a vulnerable place like Eastern Congo, for example, can be disastrous.
“Everywhere we go and work in the world life is not predictable,” Howard G. says. “If you’re a small farmer struggling feed your family, if one thing goes wrong you can have a child die, so the consequences of what can happen are so significant and magnified.”
His foundation works in some tough environments, including Eastern Congo, Rwanda and Liberia, where food and water insecurity, poverty and conflict are constant threats.
He supports a research farm in South Africa, where the foundation does conservation work returning cheetahs to the wild and supporting anti-poaching measures. The farm grows cover crops, with the goal of making these crops available to several countries on the African continent. He makes a point of visiting wherever his foundation’s active, no matter how remote or unstable the site, in order to put his own eyes on a situation.
“Each trip leads to something,” he says. “I see something, I learn something. I would argue it is important to do it and I think other people need to do more of it. Anything I’ve ever learned that’s stuck with me has been in part because I’ve gone somewhere and experienced it. I think it has to do with my being a photographer. It makes you pay attention to the detailed scene of what’s happening. I absorb a lot of things by osmosis. As a photographer you have to be there to get the photograph. I think the same way with this, you have to be there.
“When you see a lot of pain and see death it’s very hard to deal with. I don’t care who you are, you internalize that somehow. What a camera allows you to do is to take pictures of that to show the world what’s happening. It gives you a whole new purpose of what you’re trying to do, so photography’s been a huge thing for me.”
This “journalist at heart” has published several books of photography featuring what he’s “seen and experienced” around the globe.
He’s learned the only way to truly appreciate the jeopardy people face is to go where they live and witness their peril.
“You can’t understand what people go through unless you see it for yourself. I can tell you what it’s like to go into a landfill where kids are living and dying because I’ve been to where people literally live in trash. When you walk in there your eyes burn and you can’t breathe. You have to experience that.”
Want is as near as our own backyard
The Buffetts say even if you can’t travel the world, opportunities to make a difference are as near as a local pantry or the Food Bank for the Heartland, where Howard W.’s volunteered. In the middle of America’s Breadbasket people face hunger and malnutrition daily.
“The numbers have grown so much in this country of people who are food insecure,” Howard G. says. “I think there are roughly 250,000 food insecure people in Neb. That’s right in the heart of America. You have to say to yourself, That’s not right, something’s totally wrong with that.”
Teaching people to grow their own food is part of building a secure, sustainable food culture. When Howard W. discovered all Omaha Public Schools’ designated career academies had been fulfilled except one – urban agriculture – he helped establish an Urban Ag and Natural Resources career academy at Bryan High School, where he also helped form a Future Farmers of America club. Both are thriving there.
“I’ve been able to mentor some of the students at Bryan and have an impact on their lives,” he says. “Those relationships and the gratification I get from being involved with very local things are extremely rewarding. It’s so enriching what takes place there.”
Father and son encourage folks to get out of their comfort zone and give time to worthy causes like these in their own community.
“I just think being there and showing up is so important,” Howard G. says. “You don’t have to have money to make a difference.”
He says America’s generosity and volunteerism stand it alone.
“Nobody volunteers like Americans. Americans are great volunteers, and they’re great volunteers right here in Omaha.”
Staying focused
If he’s learned anything, it’s that mitigating problems like chronic hunger, food insecurity and poor nutrition is gradual at best in places without America’s entrepreneurial-volunteer spirit.
“I’m very impatient and I’ve learned I have to be more patient. I’m a Type A personality, so I’m like, I’m going to go in there and figure it out when I get there. It doesn’t work that way. One of the things you learn is there’s no short-term fix or involvement. You have to be in this for the long haul. That changes how you do things. For us it means we have to stay very focused.”
He may not have the legendary focus of his father but he’s gotten better as he’s learned to say no and to accept he can’t do everything.
“I realized the consequences if I don’t stay focused – I get distracted, I’m wasting money, I’m not making impact. That’s just something I had to get better at. If I’m going to be focused and have impact I just have to say no to people, even very good friends. If I did all those things people come to me with I would get nothing done.”
His advice for organizations and individuals is the same.
“Figure out what you want to do and just do that and don’t get distracted, don’t get sidetracked, don’t try to save the world. If you’re going to try to save the world you’re going to save nobody. You’ve got to be focused. The more narrow you are the more impact you’ll have.”
Coming full circle
Doing the book brought many benefits.
“It helped the foundation itself gain additional focus and learn lessons from the past,” Howard W. says. “It allowed us to start honing in and narrowing down where we wanted to go from there, whether multi-year crop-based research on new varieties of corn or better ways to reduce soil erosion over a decade of no till with cover crops.”
Or building a new hydroelectric plant in Eastern Congo that will bring light to the masses to catalyze investment in agribusiness that will in turn create jobs for people whose only alternative is conflict. Or reducing poaching as a way to cut off funds (from the sale of elephant tusks and rhino horns) to rebels.
“For me personally this retrospective and introspective look was almost like going through a whole other undergraduate degree,” Howard W. says. “My dad and I hadn’t as much time to travel together the last couple years, so working on this book together was a new kind of journey of taking everything we had done together in person and then analyzing it. It’s been incredibly rewarding.”
The Howards were joined by family patriarch Warren, who wrote the book’s foreword, for the launch in New York City. The paperback version from Simon & Schuster is out this fall.
“That was fun. It brought us all together,” Howard G. says.
If there’s one thing Howard G. wants people to take away from the book, it’s for people to do something.
“I just feel like if we do these things it will make a difference. Even if it doesn’t make a difference, we tried and we might learn something from that failure. My dad talks about staying in your circle of confidence. I know what I’m good at, I know what I’m not good at, so I stick with that. But that’s a big enough circle for me to still step into things I’m not comfortable with.
“Like I tell young people, ‘Get uncomfortable, just go do some things that make you go, Holy crap.’ That’s what’s going to make you grow, that’s what’s going to make you want to do more because you’re going to gain some confidence. Some things might not work, but so what.”
Food Bank of the Heartland
©by Leo Adam Biga
Appeared in Metro Quarterly Magazine (http://www.spiritofomaha.com/)
Distribution key to getting food to where it’s most needed
Collective effort to reduce food insecurity includes Food Bank
It’s no secret that in the land of plenty, a resource gap exists for many folks, including right here in the metro, The problem with poverty is not just low income, it’s lack of education and access. Want often translates into people experiencing hunger and inadequate nutrition.
Every night, a segment of poor Nebraskans goes hungry. An estimated 250,000 in the state are chronically food insecure, a dramatic increase since the 2007-2008 recession. Most of the affected adults are the working poor. One in five area children are at-risk of hunger.
The mosaic of helping agencies and initiatives addressing the issue includes food pantries. community gardens. healthy cooking classes and nutrition education. A key player in that mix is the Omaha-based Food Bank for the Heartland. Established in 1981, FBFH is one of only two food banks in the state along with the Lincoln Food Bank.
Scaling up
Until five years ago FBFH served just Omaha and Council Bluffs but it now covers most of the state, plus western Iowa, for a total of 93 counties and 75,000 square miles. In what’s been a transformation for an organization that depends almost entirely on donations and fundraisers, a completely new leadership team and staff came on board in 2009 to scale the operations up. That’s meant a new, expanded facility at 10525 J Street, a fleet of big trucks and a tech-driven warehouse order and delivery tracking system.
“We have online ordering for our customers just like Amazon that tells us what they want, when they want it and reserves it in inventory,” says president-CEO Susan Ogborn. “We have Roadnet, the UPS software, to track our trucks and to route them efficiently. We have bar coding in the warehouse so that everything is tied to an item number. It tells you when to pick and how many to pick.”
All of it’s needed to distribute the estimated 16 million pounds of food FBFH will distribute this fiscal year.
“We can’t do this without being as efficient and effective as possible. We monitor everything we do and how we do it.”
Volunteers are critical for sorting and repackaging pallets of food.
In its mode shift the Food Bank’s gone from “order taker to business seeker,” she says. “Before, we waited for people to come to us. Now, I have two full-time food sourcing professionals who do nothing but look out for food and work with the people who give it to us.”
The organization’s increased the number of retail and processing vendors it contracts with to provide food, much of it perishable meat, dairy and produce, from fewer than a dozen to more than 200. Procuring enough edible resources for its many food partners, who include pantries run by the Heart Ministry Center, Together and Heartland Hope Mission in Omaha, has “changed our entire business model completely,” Ogborn says, adding. “We are first and foremost a distribution center now. We’ve got five people on the road all the time in rural Nebraska. We’re an entirely different business.”
Heart Ministry Center director John Levy says, “The Food Bank plays an absolutely critical role in us being able to serve people in need. We can access a much wider selection of food by using Food Bank and also keep our costs much lower. By having a wider selection of food, people are more likely to come back to our Center because they had a good experience. Because we are able to get the food for free or drastically reduced prices, we have more money to spend on helping clients with their underlying problems.”
Ogborn and her staff all came to their jobs with no previous food banking experience, which she says has worked to their advantage.
“We don’t know what we can’t do, so we just we just try anything and don’t let anything stop us.”
Outside-the-box
Most satisfying to Ogborn, she says, is “finding some creative way to serve people we haven’t served before,” For example. identifying the rural poor in the Sand Hills region was proving difficult until she thought of an outside-the-box way to reach them.
“I sent out a letter to the sheriffs in those counties that said, ‘You know who the people are in your community that are in need, I don’t, how about I send you some food boxes and you give it to them when they need it?’ I didn’t know if I’d hear back or not. Well, the sheriffs in those counties, especially Nance and Merrick counties, are now distributing food on a regular basis. They’re supporting mobile pantries and we’ve got all kinds of services going on there.”
Closer to home, FBFH operates programs that provide meals to at-risk children after school, on weekends and during the summer through such youth-serving organizations as Completely Kids.
“Where we identify a gap where people aren’t being served by anybody else we will start a program.”
The effects of hunger and poor nutrition are far-reaching, especially on children’s health and school performance. Often hunger or malnourishment results when people can’t afford or find fresh, local food near them. Those living with food insecurity and residing in food deserts often don’t know what eating healthy entails and need to be taught how to source and cook things that don’t come out of a box.
Growing your own food is an option for some. But for most folks a food pantry or the SNAP (food stamps) program is more realistic. Not everyone knows about or chooses to use these remedial options. Ogborn says as many as a third of those eligible to receive SNAP benefits in Neb. fail to do so, often, she suspects, out of embarrassment.
She agrees with colleagues that mediating hunger in the Heartland requires a collaborative effort to make the needed collective impact.
“In the food banking world we have a saying – you can’t food bank your way out of hunger. And you absolutely can’t. There is enough food to feed everybody in America but how we get it and people connected is very challenging. It’s a distribution challenge process. It’s also an issue around nutrition education, cooking healthy meals.”
That’s why the Food Bank partners with ConAgra Foods Foundation, Walmart and other mega food processors and purveyors to get healthy food to where it’s needed. “We could not do what we do without them.” It’s why it partners, too, with the Hunger Free Heartland coalition and the Hunger Collaborative to do the same on a more intimate scale.
Hunger Collaborative shared services coordinator Craig Howell says FBFH not only provides nutritious food to pantries that clients might otherwise not access but supplies hot meats for children outside of school they might miss at home. He says it also assists eligible clients get signed up for SNAP. “The ability for us to make sustainable changes cannot happen without the work of the Food Bank.”
Another part of the answer is fast food giants and school cafeterias offering healthy alternatives. Ogborn says reaching people where they live with their habits will make a profound difference in their nutritional levels over time.
Ogborn says the ultimate goal is for all Nebraskans to be self-sufficient in terms of secure, sustainable access to food. “We’d love to put ourselves of business.” Until that day arrives, fundraisers are needed to help support its work. In Sept. a city-wide spaghetti feed garnered thousands of dollars. Proceeds from the ConAgra Foods Ice Skating Rink during the annual Holiday Lights Festival will go to the Food Bank. On March 12 FBFH’s big annual fundraising dinner will feature celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian at the Embassy Suites in La Vista.
Money, food, volunteers and vendors are what keep the Food Bank going. Visit http://www.FoodBankHeartland to get involved.
©by Leo Adam Biga
Appeared in Metro Quarterly Magazine (http://www.spiritofomaha.com/)
Community response to hunger fosters collaboration
Different approaches come together to make collective impact
Organizations working to make at-risk populations food secure agree more can be done collectively than alone to combat hunger. Omaha’s replete with efforts that feature collaboration and cross-pollination. Some players, such as Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue or City Sprouts, have distinct niches. Others, such as No More Empty Pots, are more comprehensive in scope and thus all roads lead there.
One way or another, these organizations connect with coalitions like Hunger Free Heartland, a ConAgra Foods Foundation’s originated-initiative that’s evolved into the community-wide Child Hunger Ends Here-Omaha Plan. Members of the Hunger Collaborative – Food Bank for the Heartland and pantry operators Heart Ministry Center, Together and Heartland Hope Mission – collectively work to end food insecurity and to provide an array of human services.
New collaborations are always surfacing, including the Prospect Village Community Garden Program that finds City Sprouts, No More Empty and Big Garden, among others, promoting the benefits of engaged, cohesive neighborhoods through community gardening.
Three organizations among many making a difference in creating a secure, equitable food system are:
Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue
If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes a communal effort to feed one. Experts agree no one source can solve food insecurity, Instead, ending hunger takes multiple approaches. One is capturing excess food otherwise thrown away and giving it to hungry folks. That’s just what Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue does.
Formed in late 2013 by Beth Ostdiek Smith, Saving Grace rescued more than 200,000 pounds of perishable food in its first 10 months of operation. Ostdiek says a pound of food equals one meal, meaning Saving Grace provided 200,000-plus meals to its recipient partners, who include nonprofits such as Table Grace, Heart Ministries and Open Door Mission that serve vulnerable youth, adults and families.
Smith, who’s long been concerned about the amount of food that gets wasted and the number of hungry people needing square meals, says she “found a niche that really wasn’t being fully addressed” in Omaha.
The response to her food rescue and delivery organization indicate’s she’s helping fill a gap.
“I can’t emphasize enough how excited our recipients are by what we’re bringing them. This is really healthy, nutritious food.”
Response from food vendors is equally positive.
“I think it’s because we’re offering this consistent, professional model that comes out to food vendors. We have refrigerated trucks and our drivers have food handling licenses. We keep it simple and seamless. We get food from here to there.”
Trader Joe’s, Akins Natural Foods, Greenberg Fruit and Attitude on Foods are a few of the biggest participating vendors.
“We just signed on CenturyLink Center’s Levy Restaurants, so we’re going to capture all the excess from the concessions and parties there.
QT has expressed interest in donating all the perishable excess from their convenience stores.”
She says she sells vendors on the give-away with a basic appeal. “Rather than throwing your excess food away in the trash we can rescue your food and get it to people that need it. It just makes sense. We like to say we’re feeding bellies rather than the landfills. It’s exciting to see how much people care and want to make this happen. We need to honor our donors who take and make time to donate.”
Part of Saving Grace’s mission is enhancing awareness and education on food waste and hunger. For example, the organization informs vendors and recipients it has the means to capture unsellable but still edible dairy, produce, proteins and grains that otherwise get thrown away.
“A unique thing we do is match the food to recipients’ needs because many times people have great hearts and take things down to food pantries the pantries can’t use. When we bring on a food recipient partner we interview them to see what their capacity is – whether they have refrigeration and freezers – how much they’re serving and what’s most in demand. Then we match our food to their needs.”
She wants to add more recipients but she says she won’t “until we get more food donors – I don’t want to make promises we can’t keep.” She says there are vast segments of the food industry ripe to be tapped, including corporate, school and hospital cafeterias, country clubs, caterers and arena-convention centers. She estimates more than 80 percent of perishable food goes uncaptured and therefore trashed. “There’s huge potential to procure more food,” she says.
Helping her with the logistics and food sourcing is Judy Rydberg, who brought 12 years experience with Waste Not Perishable Food Rescue and Delivery in Scottsdale, Arizona. Smith used that program as the model for her own. Smith feels she’s hitting a wave of interest in mitigating hunger. “I think we’re starting to see a movement, and if we can be a catalyst for the movement with our other food partners that would be a great thing.”
She also sees a need for more collaboration and communication so that food partners can identify how they best align. As for Saving Grace, she says, “what we need to have for this to be sustainable is more dollars and food donors,” adding, “We’re looking for Saving Grace Friends to help us get the word out, raise funds and open doors.
We’re just getting started. We’re a very small but mighty organization.”
Visit savinggracefoodrescue.org to see where you can make a difference.
City Sprouts
In 1995 City Sprouts began as a small community garden meant to bring harmony to the then-violence plagued Orchard Hill neighborhood. The nonprofit’s evolved into a one-and-half acre campus from 40th and Seward to 40th and Decatur. Its education center, community garden and urban farm have a mission to enhance food security, promote healthy lifestyles, employ at-risk youth and build community.
The land produces fresh vegetables and eight hens in a chicken coop produce eggs for use by area residents, many of whom tend plots in the community garden. Youth from challenged backgrounds learn horticulture and life lessons in addition to earning money working on the farm, which includes a hoop house that extends the growing season from early spring through late fall. The fruit and vegetables interns grow from seed to table are sold at an on-site farmer’s market. Classes and workshops by horticulture and other experts cover nutrition, canning, dehydrating, cooking and non-food topics. Events such as potlucks, discussions and seasonal celebrations invite area residents to engage with staff, volunteers and visitors.
“We are part of a larger movement locally and nationally trying to foster a connection with your food, with your neighborhood. Our work is supported by this great resurgence of people going back to gardening, knowing where their food comes from and eating more locally, more seasonally,” says City Sprouts director Roxanne Williams.
A turning point for City Sprouts came in 2005 when a vacant house at 4002 Seward Street was donated as its education center.
“Getting the house was a huge asset,” Williams says. “That is one of the things that has enabled us to grow our organization. It changed the whole direction of City Sprouts and made so many more things possible.”
The house allows the organization to be engaged with the neighborhood year-round through classes and programs held there.
In addition to the interns who grow on the urban farm, young children are introduced to gardening on campus. Next spring children from two neighborhood elementary schools, Franklin and Walnut Hill, will learn gardening and nutrition in programs City Sprouts is planning with them, including developing a school garden with Franklin staff and students.
With northeast Omaha considered a food desert because residents have limited access to fresh, local, nutritious food within walking distance, the garden and farm take center stage in good weather. Williams says City Sprouts is one of many players trying to improve food options there and in other underserved metro neighborhoods.
“It’s not one answer, it takes a village, it takes so many people working together. There’s lots of groups making a difference. I think we’re making inroads. But there’s always going to be a need.”
Community gardeners, ranging from entire families to single moms to senior retirees, grow on 45 raised beds surrounded by fruit trees and perennials. In exchange for a nominal fee gardeners are assigned a bed and provided plants, seeds, water, education and encouragement. Gardeners are responsible for maintaining their own beds.
Getting buy-in from neighbors is taking time, especially in an area with many rental properties and therefore much turnover. But there are growers who return every year. Several young professionals and students living in the area who also happen to be backyard farmers and foodies are regulars at the community-building events.
Williams, a master gardener who comes from an education and fundraising background, came on board three years ago as the nonprofit’s first full-time, year-round director.
“It is my ideal job. I absolutely love what I do here because it encompasses all my interests and experience and weaves them together. I get to work with kids, teens, all the way up to, seniors, I garden, I fund-raise, I teach.”
City Sprouts partners with many organizations in carrying out its mission and depends on volunteers to maintain the campus.
“There’s always weeding and watering and harvesting to do,” Williams says.
Its big fund raisers are the spring Omaha Gives, the August Gala and an end-of-year campaign.
For donation, volunteer and event information, visit omahasprouts.org.
No More Empty Pots
It started with 2010 conversations, then a summit, around people’s passion for fresh, nutritious, local flood – growing it and getting it to where it’s most needed. Discussions about building food systems that tie together local producers and underserved consumers, that educate users, that support entrepreneurial opportunities and that do much more led to the creation of No More Empty Pots.
The catalyst organization is all about identifying needs in the local food ecosystem and partnering with others to address those needs. The hoped for collective impact aims to reduce food insecurity and to grow a sustainable, healthy food culture.
Co-founder Nancy Williams says while food deserts are lessening as there’s more access to fresh, local food, too many people remain disconnected from their food.
“There are a lot of people working on this,” she says, “and it’s going to take a lot of people putting forth effort, working together, securing resources and engaging folks to make that happen. I believe that will happen and I see evidence that we are on our way to getting there.”
The nonprofit does its part by convening stakeholders, hosting workshops and presenting gardening and cooking demonstrations. It partners with Truck Farm to send a garden on wheels to schools and other youth-serving organizations to educate students about how food grows. NMEP also supports things like Community Market Basket, an initiative through Tomato Tomato’s CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program that makes fresh, local food accessible to folks who might otherwise not get it.
Even with all this activity, she sees gaps that need filling.
“There are still some self-sufficiency issues we need to help people address so that they know how to produce their own food and to use seasonal food for proper nutrition at a reasonable cost.”
She says eating healthy within a budget, on a limited income, is doable when people are informed.
She sees much potential in food business development. She’s fundraising for renovations to new space NMEP recently acquired on North 30th Street. She envisions a food hub there focusing on the aggregation, processing, distribution and recovery of food waste to extract and add value within the food system.
“The problem is not that we don’t have enough food, but that we don’t have the logistics, people, resources to ensure it gets where it needs to be at the right time to be used by the right people for the right thing. America throws away more than 40 percent of the food we grow. There is so much that can be done with logistics and growing food people want to eat and know how to use.
“Restaurants can get more local food but they need a place where they can get it in the quantity they need it, so working with distributors to get more local food is an opportunity as well.”
Where there’s waste, she sees opportunity.
“There’s lots of room for aggregation and processing. There’s lots of farmers growing food but they don’t always have somewhere to take the food after the markets because people aren’t educated and encouraged about the benefits of buying local and may not be accustomed to paying market price. The hub will give farmers a place to take excess produce and create value-added products.
“There’s a lot of opportunities for incubating and developing food-based businesses. It’s why we’re looking at having an accelerator to help cultivate entrepreneurial ideas and to connect new entrepreneurs with people who can help make their ideas come to life.”
She envisions a bakery and bistro at the new site along with shared commercial kitchen spaces that food entrepreneurs can rent by the hour.
In order for NMEP and others to make a lasting difference, she says, collaboration is key. Her goal is to replicate best practices here and elsewhere. No matter who you are, she says, “there’s space at the table for everybody to contribute to make this better.”
To assist NMEP’s growth, human resources are needed, including volunteers to garden, cook and teach.
“We also need professional support with marketing, fundraising, design and community outreach. We’re recruiting board members to help guide the organization to realize the community-driven vision. We’re actively seeking to fill internships in marketing and project management. We plan to hire staff as more projects become active.”
Keep up with NMEP at http://www.nomoreemptypots.org.
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