Latest / Conservation Stories / More Than a Food Pantry: How the South Plains Food Bank Feeds People and Futures

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More Than a Food Pantry: How the South Plains Food Bank Feeds People and Futures · Conservation Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:05
  Speaker A: Hey, friends. Tillery Timmins Sims here again, coming to you from the beautiful offices of Jackalope Creative Studio. And this is another episode of Conservation Stories. Conservation Stories is a podcast brought to you by the Sand Hill Research association and. Or Sarah, as we like to call it. And we love to focus on people that are doing great things in our community. And one of those that we have with us today is Chase Head, who is the business. Business development. Development Chief Development officer. Okay. For the food bank. The South Plains Food Bank.
• 0:38
  Speaker B: Yes, ma', am. That's correct, Hillary.
• 0:40
  Speaker A: Well, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it.
• 0:43
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
• 0:45
  Speaker A: So give us a little bit. I know you mentioned earlier that you were. You're from Borger, so tell us how you got to Lubbock and. And why.
• 0:53
  Speaker B: So I grew up in Borger and graduated high school, came to Texas Tech and stayed here.
• 1:01
  Speaker A: That happens a lot.
• 1:02
  Speaker B: Wife and two daughters.
• 1:03
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:04
  Speaker B: So I've been here for over 20 years now in Lubbock's home. I was a fourth generation Texas Tech.
• 1:12
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 1:13
  Speaker B: Alum. So my great grandfather came here in 1927, went to Tech. So it's just part of our family legacy, I guess. And Lubbock is a great place to be in, become home.
• 1:25
  Speaker A: So my brother and I were on the Tech campus yesterday. We were out at the Southwest Collection and we passed by the dairy barn and we were laughing because my granddad also went to Tech, but he didn't get to finish. He had to go home and take care of the family. And you know how that happens a lot of times, especially back then. It happened a lot. But we were laughing about him taking the chicken ology course in that barn.
• 1:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. When I say fourth generation, along my great grandfather, he didn't graduate either because the depression hit. Depression hit home. So.
• 1:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, but you know, those guys, they. They deserve to be called alum, I think.
• 2:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think so.
• 2:02
  Speaker A: They made big sacrifices for their families. They did. So. So what did you study?
• 2:07
  Speaker B: I studied biology, so.
• 2:09
  Speaker A: And here you are.
• 2:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, here I am. Fundraising.
• 2:13
  Speaker B: Which is a.
• 2:14
  Speaker A: That is an. That is Fundraising to me is like, what a skill. That is an amazing skill.
• 2:20
  Speaker B: Well, it's. It's a fun thing to do and I've had to learn it over time. So I graduated with a biology degree and just happened to take a job in college doing cotton research because I needed a. Needed a job and there happened to be a posting in the biology building. And after I graduated, I went to work for Bear Crop Science and Fiber Max Cottonseed and worked there from about 09 to 2022 and.
• 2:49
  Speaker A: Oh, wow. Long career there.
• 2:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Did R and D for about five or six years and then I went back and got my MBA and after that got into the operation side and did that for about six or seven years. So.
• 3:04
  Speaker A: So did you grow up in AG in Borger?
• 3:07
  Speaker B: I did not.
• 3:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, because I, when I think of Borger, I think of the reef, you know, the long ass, the refineries that are there. Right.
• 3:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. So my grandfather, he was the plant manager of ConocoPhillips when he retired. And my dad, he's a builder and owns a kind of oil field supply company up in.
• 3:27
  Speaker A: Entrepreneur.
• 3:27
  Speaker B: Entrepreneur.
• 3:28
  Speaker A: So.
• 3:30
  Speaker B: So no, AG was new for me. And it, like I said, it just happened to be that they. That I needed a job and there was a cotton research job available.
• 3:38
  Speaker A: Well, and what, what an amazing time to be doing R and D and cotton. Yeah, Lots of changes happening during that time.
• 3:46
  Speaker B: They did. Yeah, that was back in the early, earlier 2000s when I did that and it was a great business to be in. But it was also, when I got out of it in 2022, it was, it was a good time to get out of agriculture.
• 4:00
  Speaker A: I'll tell you. It was a really good time.
• 4:02
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 4:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, it sure was. So really you haven't been in this role but for three years?
• 4:06
  Speaker B: Three years, yeah, I've been doing professional fundraising for three years. Prior to that, I had done some.
• 4:13
  Speaker B: Non professional volunteer fundraising for some different organizations in town like High Point Village and done some campaign stuff and a few different things. So I had got my feet wet in fundraising. But yeah, it's completely different when you're doing it professionally and people are relying on you for it then. So.
• 4:31
  Speaker A: Well, I'm, I, myself and Lacey are really, really bad because we're like, we'll work our, we'll work our rear ends off for you, but we don't want to ask for anything.
• 4:39
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker A: You know, and so having a nonprofit, it's a, it's a skill that it's vital. It really is. And it's important to be able to describe the mission, but it's also a huge skill to make that last, you know, step into saying, come be a partner.
• 4:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, unfortunately for the Food bank, we've been around for a long time, 43 years now. And.
• 5:07
  Speaker B: We have a really good reputation and we have a great mission and people are in Lubbock or we have a lot of really good people that are willing to lend a helping hand and give their time and treasure and.
• 5:23
  Speaker A: Give us just a quick overview what. Where the history. You've been around 45 years and tell us like your service area and how many people you serve and those type of things.
• 5:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, the food bank's been around 43 years. So.
• 5:39
  Speaker B: We have. We fall under the Feeding America network. And then within that Feeding America network, each food bank kind of has their own service area to make sure that the whole country is. Is covered. And our service area goes north to Plainview, south to La Mesa.
• 5:59
  Speaker B: West over to the New Mexico border, and then it goes east kind of that Kings County Dickens area and kind of straight down from the Texas Panhandle there. So 19 counties, we serve about 300 to 500 families a day throughout that service area. Now, the majority of it is in Lubbock. The, you know, the. We're the hub. And the population here is probably 75, 80% of that whole service area.
• 6:25
  Speaker A: But.
• 6:28
  Speaker B: And then, but we have so many different programs to, to feed people through. So we have our mobile. Mobile pantry and that's what takes food. We'll go once or twice a month to each one of those counties or communities throughout the service area and take food.
• 6:45
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 6:45
  Speaker B: To those people. We also have our children's feeding program. So we're. We're feeding children mainly in Lubbock through that program, but every school day and then five days a week in the summer, we're doing.
• 7:03
  Speaker B: Probably, I want to say, over a thousand kids a day in those programs. I wish I had the exact number on me of how many children.
• 7:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 7:11
  Speaker B: Meals we've served throughout the year. But if you do go to our website@spfb.org there is that information. There's a ticker on there that I think will have that up to you.
• 7:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great thing.
• 7:21
  Speaker B: Yeah. So you can kind of get some of those up to date statistics of what that looks like.
• 7:25
  Speaker A: Right, right. Yeah.
• 7:27
  Speaker B: To the food bank.
• 7:28
  Speaker A: I know you've been a blessing to the, to the community for a long time. And, and it's. I'm. I think it's great that you are expanding and getting, getting that food out to everywhere. I didn't realize that that Feeding America for like, it's, it's a very organized effort across the United States. I didn't, I didn't know that. That's amazing.
• 7:45
  Speaker B: It is. Yeah. The good thing with being a part of Feeding America is they really go out and will negotiate a lot of contracts with Nabisco and Kellogg's and a lot of these.
• 7:55
  Speaker A: I mean, when you talk about your buying power is big.
• 7:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is big. And that's. And that's how we do. What we do is really with some of those national contracts and that we kind of all band together and that's awesome. Make sure that we're getting the absolute best price on. On everything that we do and that we can be as just as efficient as possible with. With every dollar that's donated.
• 8:17
  Speaker A: Right. That's great. That's great. What a great organization.
• 8:20
  Speaker B: We get really good support.
• 8:21
  Speaker A: I never had, you know, been involved in the food bank, but during COVID I volunteered there quite a bit during that year. 2020.
• 8:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:31
  Speaker A: And I just thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was very educational to me. And then since that time, I've just been curious about.
• 8:45
  Speaker A: How that whole process works of getting food to people. I've attended some congressional hearings and done some of my own just. And I'm a nerd. So if I'm interested in something, I just kind of like, I just kind of go, how does this work? So. And then I have a friend that actually served as the deputy. The secretary of ag for. And he ran the food stamp program, so. Brandon Lips. Yeah. Yeah. So, Brandon, they're great people. Great people. And so I learned, you know, I've had several conversations with him about his personal experience of what he saw during that time, you know, and then his work since then, which has been really, you know, focused on hunger.
• 9:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:31
  Speaker A: And it's. And he's from, you know, he's from Odessa. He's an Also an old kid.
• 9:36
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:37
  Speaker A: You know, so that's been interesting to me. And I, I. My only personal. I've had a couple of personal experience in that world. And when my husband and I went through ag bankruptcy and he had. We'd gone from farming to. Now we have a job that's. You're starting at the lowest end of this job. We had four kids and little probably TMI, but we're prob. Doing maybe 35,000, you know, and we could not get any help.
• 10:10
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 10:10
  Speaker A: You know, and I'm just like, I just need a little help. Just a little help. You know what I mean?
• 10:14
  Speaker B: Well, that's the case for most of the people I think that we serve.
• 10:17
  Speaker A: Is that I'll need a lot. But because we had. We had a vehicle that we were paying for, you know, and we had brought our. Our land debt through our bankruptcy, you know, following the Texas laws, you can do that. We just. We wouldn't qualify for anything.
• 10:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 10:35
  Speaker A: You know, even though we were you know, several percentage points below the poverty level at that time, unfortunately, we had such good family. You know, my dad would bring us, you know, a half a calf and yeah, stock our freezer and family would just, you know, bring junk food to the kids, you know, and so. But I know that there are people that aren't that fortunate. And then we began to work with single moms and I saw them spend days on the process of getting on food stamps, you know, or we call food stamps. Like we SNAP basically is what we're calling that, you know, but, you know, I'm like, how do you, you're a single mom, you can barely hold down a job anyway. You get a kid that gets a cold and then the next kid gets the flu and the next, and you've missed four days of work and suddenly you don't have a job. You know, so I, I think it built my empathy for people that are in that situation, you know, and I, I quit thinking of people there as, you know, what I had already. Oh, you know, I just had that mentality.
• 11:41
  Speaker B: Well, there's this perception that, that, you know, go get a job and you don't need the food bank or you don't need SNAP benefits or whatever. But the case is most of the people that are using the food bank or using SNAP benefits do have a job. They're just not making enough to.
• 11:57
  Speaker A: Right.
• 11:57
  Speaker B: Be able to support.
• 11:59
  Speaker A: Right.
• 11:59
  Speaker B: Their family.
• 12:00
  Speaker A: I saw statistics the other day like the, the employer that has the highest number of employees on food stamps is Walmart. So I kind of thought, what are we look. Should we look at this as supplemental food for people or should we look at a supplemental salary? Yeah, you know, people aren't making enough or being able to work enough hours to even, you know.
• 12:24
  Speaker A: Qualifying because it really does take a lot. Can you tell us a little bit about what it takes? Because you guys at the food bank, right, you're looking at the same.
• 12:33
  Speaker A: Kind of, I guess I don't want you application of.
• 12:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. So the requirements are not the exact same, but for qualifying for.
• 12:42
  Speaker B: Food from the food bank is what they are for food stamps or SNAP benefits. But.
• 12:50
  Speaker B: They'Re not the same criteria. But the criteria that we're looking at is the same. So it's family size, family size and income that we're, that we're looking at and what you qualify for. And we do help individuals qualify for SNAP benefits because the food bank, we're really there as kind of a. To fill the gap when needed, not necessarily to provide sustenance for Ongoing support to live off of. So that's more where the SNAP benefits come in and that long term help. So, yeah, we're looking at the same criteria. It's not the exact same numbers to qualify for the two. But then we also have different programs at the food bank to help people as well. So there's. I think everybody's familiar with the term SNAP or food stamps. Old term. But then at the food bank, the government support that we get is called tfap. So it's Texas Emergency Food Assistance Program.
• 13:53
  Speaker A: Okay. Does that come from tda, Texas Department Agriculture?
• 13:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:57
  Speaker A: So.
• 13:57
  Speaker B: So SNAP and TFAP both gets kind of rolled down from the farm bill is how is where that starts at. And then for TFAP product, that's money that's pushed from the farm bill to the Texas Department of Agriculture or USD to.
• 14:14
  Speaker A: Okay. And it goes also to. Not just to food. I don't think I realized it was going to food banks because I know it goes to schools, so some of it. Right.
• 14:24
  Speaker B: Yeah. So that would be a different program, I believe. But. But TFAP was going directly to food banks to purchase government or usda.
• 14:33
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 14:34
  Speaker B: Food products.
• 14:34
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 14:35
  Speaker B: And those are the products that you have to qualify for to receive from us.
• 14:40
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 14:41
  Speaker B: There's. But, you know, we can help people that aren't. Don't necessarily qualify for those that are in a bad situation, though, with purchase product with donated products.
• 14:51
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 14:52
  Speaker B: So yesterday, for example, we were out at Friendship ISD and we served, I want to say, between 500 and 1,000 families with produce that we purchased here locally. And so these families got about 30 pounds of. Of squash and watermelons. That's.
• 15:12
  Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome.
• 15:13
  Speaker B: This time of year.
• 15:14
  Speaker A: So where'd you get your watermelon?
• 15:17
  Speaker B: That's a good question. I'm not sure where it came from. I know the squash came right here.
• 15:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. Faith Farm.
• 15:23
  Speaker B: I want to say Idaloo, maybe.
• 15:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. Probably Faithful Farm Market. That's. Yeah, the McGee's.
• 15:29
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 15:29
  Speaker A: Yeah. They're big squash. I bet. But I'm just curious because, like, I have a longtime family friend and they're big watermelon growers in Terry County.
• 15:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 15:38
  Speaker A: So tns.
• 15:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's probably where it came from. I was told that. That they broke open one of the watermelons and said it was absolutely delicious. So the best watermelon they'd had this season. So.
• 15:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, they are. They are great. It's just amazing to me that we're like, we still have watermelons. And it's. No.
• 15:55
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's been warm.
• 15:57
  Speaker A: It has been. But they have been really good. My son is a big watermelon fiend. And we go out there because you can go out to their. Their. Their office there at south between La Mesa and Brownfield, and you can pick up watermelons for just cheap.
• 16:12
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:13
  Speaker A: You know, so we usually go out there and fill up the back of the car. So.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I'm glad we brought that up, too, because it's not something that you always think about with the food bank or. Or USDA or snap, but the, you know, the effects of it aren't only a challenge for those people that are receiving the benefits, but they. So those funds are used to purchase produce from our local producers and our grocers.
• 16:43
  Speaker B: So it affects a lot more people than just.
• 16:45
  Speaker A: It has more ripple effects. And I remember when those. When they were putting money into that we had way more dairy was the issue at that time when I was a kid. And we would stand in line for cheese.
• 16:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:59
  Speaker A: The big, huge block of government cheese.
• 17:03
  Speaker B: Yep. My.
• 17:06
  Speaker B: And we still have a lot of people that really love to get that cheese when we're able to hand it out. But I think my wife grew up with a single mom in Oklahoma, so she was in that situation growing up, and.
• 17:18
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 17:18
  Speaker B: And I know how.
• 17:19
  Speaker A: Oh, I'm sure that makes it even more near and dear to you.
• 17:23
  Speaker B: It does. Yeah.
• 17:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It makes so much difference. And when you know someone, you know, because I think especially now, we have a tendency. This is like, it's them.
• 17:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:34
  Speaker A: And it's not us. But when it becomes someone that, you know, it is. It is us.
• 17:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is. And it's. You know, her stories are interesting because I've seen the house that she grew up in as. With a single mom there, and that.
• 17:49
  Speaker A: Is the hardest job.
• 17:51
  Speaker B: And, you know, I think she was young enough that when they would get their food stamps and they would come in at the first of the month or whenever they get them, how excited she would be to go to the grocery store. Her two older siblings, I think.
• 18:05
  Speaker B: They knew a little bit more at the time, so it was not as exciting for them. It was a little bit more embarrassing to go purchase with the food stamps. But, yeah.
• 18:14
  Speaker A: And it used to be a big deal. I mean, I can remember even as a kid, like, standing in line behind somebody, you know, and then getting older and recognizing, you know, that that was what was going on, you know, so it's not nearly as noticeable.
• 18:29
  Speaker B: I think the Lone Star card. I don't think anybody knows.
• 18:32
  Speaker A: Right.
• 18:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:33
  Speaker A: Right. Well, and I will say, like, you know, when they were giving out some of that money during COVID you know, we. We. I mean, you just. If you were part. Pretty much everybody that had a kid in school was getting a loan card, you know, and, man, it was so helpful.
• 18:49
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:49
  Speaker A: I mean, I didn't know. We weren't really like. Well, you know, we were in the oil and gas business as well. And so, you know, I mean, it just kind of tanked in 2020, you know, and so it was really great and helpful, you know, and so I can't imagine what it would feel like to not have that lower level of needs consistently, that foundation, just not be there consistently, you know?
• 19:14
  Speaker B: You know, it's really interesting to look at back at Covid in that time and 2020 and the issues that we had then and the need and kind of compare it to the situation that we're in now with the need that, you know, completely different reasons for it. Back then, money was flowing from everywhere. So I was on the board of the food bank in 2020 prior to taking this. So I kind of saw it from afar, but there we were getting money from everywhere. In 2020. You just couldn't find food. You couldn't find product to give out. Now, you know, we're kind of in the opposite situation. You can get food but don't have any money.
• 19:55
  Speaker A: Money to do it with. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I, you know, I know Lacey. Lacey's. She's the founder of our organization, and she's a rancher. And I know.
• 20:05
  Speaker B: I've seen Lacey Bardeman.
• 20:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have seen her. I mean, like, I know that there's a food. A food bank that has bought her meat before, you know, and so I can see that whole, you know, how. That full circle, you know, and why the idea of, you know, starting this, hey, we have a need here, and we have a need here, you know, and to me, if we can keep more of it local like that, man, it just is a great. It's a. It's a great thing for our economy.
• 20:35
  Speaker B: It is. Yeah. And.
• 20:38
  Speaker B: There was a grant the last couple of years that came through TDA for local producers, so we were able to get a lot of our protein from.
• 20:50
  Speaker B: Producers around. Around Lubbock.
• 20:52
  Speaker A: Well, and, you know, I think a lot of times when people think of the kind of food that, you know, you're getting, it's good stuff. You know what I mean? Like, we. I remember you Know, going through things. And I think you're right. It was really rough during that period, you know what I mean? Like, it was mostly carbs.
• 21:08
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 21:08
  Speaker A: You know, but I was always so shocked. We never knew what would be there to hand out. You know, we'd pack the boxes with the, you know, things that are shelf stable and then when people would come, right, you pull out the things out of the refrigerator and the things that people have donated.
• 21:25
  Speaker B: Yep. And.
• 21:28
  Speaker B: We still do that today, which is great. So we'll get.
• 21:32
  Speaker B: On a daily basis, we'll go pick up from all the grocers in town and we. A lot of times we're getting shelf stable stuff that they've pulled off the shelf because it's not selling or they over ordered or whatever the case may be. And then we also will get.
• 21:50
  Speaker B: Their salads and their bakery breads and all the stuff that's not shelf stable. So we, we have an agreement with them that we'll get those turned around and put out the door within about 24 hours. So.
• 22:03
  Speaker A: Well, and a lot of times, you know, these, the families, excuse me, that are in this situation, they might not have time to cook.
• 22:12
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:12
  Speaker A: You know, and can you tell us a little bit? Like, I know there, there's been some talk about like changing what you can and can't get, because ready made food was not something that you could get. So like rotisserie chickens and things like that. Are you able to. If somebody's on stamps, are they able to get that kind of stuff or is it something that y' all can kind of provide and fill that need in as you get it donated?
• 22:39
  Speaker B: So we don't ever get rotisserie chickens. That's a good one. I haven't really thought about that one. But we get a lot of salads, we get a lot of bakery items. We get a lot of the ready to cook items. Yeah, the rotisserie chickens, those ones are probably one with food safety that makes it really difficult to give out. You know, one of the other ones that's really difficult for us is eggs because it's just taking care of eggs is man.
• 23:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 23:09
  Speaker B: Is a hard one. So. So there's a couple of, you know, a few items that, that are difficult to distribute with, with the model that we have. So I think rotisserie chickens probably fall into that, that category. But we give out a ton of bakery items, whether it's breads or cakes or donuts and salads. And those perishable items, the sandwiches, ready made sandwiches.
• 23:32
  Speaker A: I saw that too. Like, that's not. It was nice.
• 23:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. And. And, you know, we love giving that stuff out. And I think that's where, you know, we can really make a dent in. In food insecurity is just by food waste alone.
• 23:48
  Speaker A: Well, and it makes a huge impact just on, you know, what goes into the waste stream. You know, I mean, it's. That's just a huge.
• 23:58
  Speaker A: I mean, it really. If you look at food waste, we do, I think, throw away about half of our food.
• 24:02
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 24:03
  Speaker A: You know, and so it's. I had to. I just recently finished a certification on food food systems sustainability. And that was one of the things we had to do over the course of, like, three weeks is like, keep track of the food that we were going in the trash. And I was like, this is very revealing about me and my household.
• 24:24
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:25
  Speaker B: I don't know that I'd want to track that around my house.
• 24:28
  Speaker A: It is. Because when I think about then, like, man, I'm throwing away somebody else could be benefiting from this.
• 24:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 24:35
  Speaker A: So can you get, like, you probably can't get donations of things that are like, oh, we. We catered this event. We have, like, all this food left over because of the. Because you are following these USDA safety guidelines.
• 24:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, we follow all the surf safe guidelines, I believe is what it's called, and have to get certified in that and follow all those procedures. But there was a. And I don't know if it's still around or not. There was a program a few years ago where restaurants could.
• 25:07
  Speaker B: Sign up. And I know there were some local restaurants that were part of it. And any basically leftovers that they had at the end of the night were able to get picked up and.
• 25:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, that'd be great. Especially. I know there's a lot of places now around the community that are serving meals.
• 25:23
  Speaker B: They are.
• 25:23
  Speaker A: That's really increased.
• 25:25
  Speaker B: It has. And that's, you know, that's where we try to step in with our agency partners as well, is that.
• 25:35
  Speaker B: We know the food bank is not always the most convenient either by proximity or hours. So the more that we can work through some of these other agencies, the better that we can feed people. So, you know, there's places like Lubbock Impact that are doing hot meals on Wednesdays and then, you know, St. Benedict's I think they're doing lunch pretty much every day.
• 25:56
  Speaker A: And.
• 25:58
  Speaker B: But where we try to step in and help those folks is by allowing them to use our buying power to get food. So that's either us purchasing it directly from suppliers with Our purchasing power or that, you know, I mentioned that we pick up food so we never know what we're going to get when we do these pickups. We may get a 50 pound bag of pinto beans, which we're not going to hand out a 50 pound bag of pinto beans to a family, but Lubbock Impact, that may be great for them to come get from us. So, so we have a program where any other nonprofit in town can come shop from us once a month for 20 cents a pound. And that's basically a number that I think USDA has given us, but it's basically just to recoup the cost of fuel and labor and everything that. To pick it up and sort it and so.
• 26:55
  Speaker A: So awesome.
• 26:56
  Speaker B: Yeah. So that's one of the things I think a lot of people don't know about the Food bank is how much. How we try to step in and help all the other nonprofits with that, the food portion so that, so that they can focus on their mission and we can help them with the.
• 27:09
  Speaker A: That's great. I didn't, I didn't know that that is, that is really. I love to see that kind of collaborative work among, you know, that's kind of part of what we've. We have said a part of our mission is like we don't want to reinvent the wheel. If you're doing something, let us just kind of come alongside you and put some wind in your sails, you know what I mean? And what can we do to help move you forward? So I love that. Well, so.
• 27:34
  Speaker A: Can you give us. I know that there's a lot of questions right now about, you know, everything that's happening with, you know, and it's not just now, it's ongoing. I mean, like, this has been a question forever, you know what I mean? Like, but what, what are the particulars for what you have to meet the requirements that we have to meet for SNAP and what are the requirements we have to meet for Food Bank?
• 27:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, so.
• 28:01
  Speaker B: I'll give some estimates there because it's very specific numbers. And on the fundraising side, I'm not looking at those numbers every day, but for a family of four to qualify, it's going to be a little bit different for SNAP or for the Food bank, but a family of four is about $40,000 income level. As the family size increases, the, the.
• 28:29
  Speaker B: Less you have to make and kind of vice versa there usually that about 40,000 for a family of four is kind of the.
• 28:37
  Speaker A: I'm trying to imagine, like, I mean, dividing that by 4, like that's $10,000 a year per person with that is just. And there are. Now, do y' all have work requirements? I know SNAP has work requirements.
• 28:50
  Speaker B: We don't have.
• 28:51
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 28:52
  Speaker B: Work requirements. Yeah, snap, I think you got to show that you are working or that you're putting in three, three applications a month or something like that.
• 29:00
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 29:01
  Speaker B: If you're to keep your SNAP benefits.
• 29:04
  Speaker B: With ours, there's not requirement there, but you're also not sustaining yourself with what we give out.
• 29:12
  Speaker A: Well, and snap snow, it's supplemental too. I mean, so correct me if I'm. I'm wrong. I think the current rate is like $6.38 a day is the maximum, I think if, you know. I don't know.
• 29:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not sure what that number is also. So it's about 30% of your required nutrition. Yeah.
• 29:33
  Speaker A: So, yeah. So I mean, that's a, that's not much. Yeah, it's not much. Yeah. But when you think about the amount of money, like when you're looking at the farm bill and you're going, wow, the vast majority of this goes to these programs, you know, it does make you wonder, okay, I wonder if we could be more efficient. Maybe not on what people need, like, but is there a way for us to. I love the fact that, that, that these are going to non profits and then going out.
• 30:05
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 30:05
  Speaker A: You know, and so, you know, we're always now talking about that government efficiency and you know, that kind of thing. And so, you know, you wonder, like, look to see the breakdown of all that budget and where all that goes.
• 30:17
  Speaker B: Well, and I, you know, I don't, I don't think it's getting political here, but I think everybody could agree there's probably a lot of government waste in every.
• 30:26
  Speaker A: They're always. And I think every. There always has been. I mean, it's just part of it. Right. You know, but. And I think.
• 30:35
  Speaker A: You know, just having a way for people to be able to access, you know, I just am like, we want to keep people from just starvation. I mean, if you want to keep people from really being productive, you know, people can't do that on 30%. So you guys can they collect both from. From. Yeah, they're getting SNAP and they can get you so that you guys are actually helping. Really. I mean, that, that makes a huge difference.
• 31:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, you think of productivity of adults, but also children.
• 31:09
  Speaker A: Yes. In school and stuff. Yeah.
• 31:11
  Speaker B: Yes. I think a lot of the.
• 31:16
  Speaker A: A.
• 31:17
  Speaker B: Lot of the issues that kids have at school comes from hunger when you look at Lubbock, I mean, we're. Lisd's around 70% of the kids are on free or reduced.
• 31:26
  Speaker A: Right.
• 31:28
  Speaker B: Lunch. Lunch program.
• 31:29
  Speaker A: So. And I think I read statistics the other day. It's like one in every five kids in Texas is eligible to receive.
• 31:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 31:38
  Speaker A: SNAP benefits. So that means one in every five.
• 31:40
  Speaker B: I think Lubbock's probably one in four. So we're a little bit higher than.
• 31:43
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:44
  Speaker B: The state. But. But yeah, if you think about, you know, if you're hungry, the last thing on your mind is making good grades or.
• 31:53
  Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. So a shift a little bit.
• 31:58
  Speaker A: My son, My youngest son worked at the garden, which was called the grub, the youth program. And so tell us a little bit. Which is not Grub anymore. I think it's. Y' all made some changes.
• 32:11
  Speaker B: Tell us what's going on there. Yeah, we've rebranded it. So. So part of my role is all of our marketing and PR and everything. And. And I was on the board for seven years and I always thought, man, every time I hear the word grub, all I think about this little white worm that I want to get rid of in my yard or garden. So I was never a big fan. Which.
• 32:30
  Speaker A: It means growing urban.
• 32:31
  Speaker B: Growing Recruits for Urban Business.
• 32:33
  Speaker A: That's it. So it's an entrepreneur. It was an entrepreneurial program.
• 32:36
  Speaker B: It was. It started off with a. A couple of grants the. That. For kids that were. Got themselves into trouble and. And that term. I don't know if I. Even if I told people what GRUB stood for. Growing Recruits for Urban Business, they would have been able to really tell me exactly what that means meant. So.
• 32:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 32:58
  Speaker B: So when I came on and was in charge of marketing, I said, well, we're going to do away with Grub and we're going to just. And we went back and forth with different ideas of what's catchy and what makes sense and. And couldn't come up with anything that we really liked and really said exactly what it was. So we just decided to call it the South Plains Food Bank Youth Leadership Program and go with that. So there's no questions to what we're. What we're doing, what we're doing. And those students, they work half a day throughout the summer, make a paycheck, and then they also get some sort of leadership training, budgeting skills. Every day we'll have a speaker come in. So this. This year, I think we had a bank every Wednesday that would come in, talk about, wow, financial skills and how to budget.
• 33:44
  Speaker A: Right. Right.
• 33:45
  Speaker B: What Credit means and how important that is. And then we'd also have tech coaches come in and talk about leadership and we have people come in and talk about.
• 33:55
  Speaker A: We've been there several times. We've talked about water. We've done some hands on things with the kids on how, you know, water filtration and our ply lake systems and that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's a.
• 34:06
  Speaker B: We do, yeah, we do some of it around agriculture and we do a lot of it around just. We know a lot of these kids aren't going to, you know, stay in agriculture forever, so we like to teach that agriculture piece. But you know, more importantly, I think teach, teach them skills that they're not getting at school or at home.
• 34:25
  Speaker A: Well, you know, and I think people, especially people are listening to this podcast will have that connection to the farm to remember. Like, hey, there's something about getting out and hoeing.
• 34:36
  Speaker B: Yeah. Getting your hands dirty.
• 34:37
  Speaker A: Getting your hands dirty. And I can just tell you like our, our son, he, we adopted him from, from China. He came here when he was 12. And I mean, just imagine like, you know, speaking English.
• 34:50
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:50
  Speaker A: You know, you can't read a ride in the language. You're completely, you know. And so he, he had a cuff. The first two summers were pretty rough for him. And then someone told us about grub. We'd never heard of it before, so he started going kind year and then got chosen to work and he was a different kid at the end of that summer.
• 35:08
  Speaker B: Well, that's the great thing about, I love that program because the, the one thing I hear from almost everybody that goes through the program is the community that they find in it is.
• 35:18
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 35:18
  Speaker B: Is life changing for a lot of them. So.
• 35:20
  Speaker A: Oh my goodness. Yeah, it was, it really was. And you know, it was such a good way for him to be able to be able to be in a safe environment to learn the social. Because it's completely, completely different. I mean, it's not just the language, but the culture is just so different in everything. You know, even.
• 35:39
  Speaker A: You know, there, you know, there's not a lot of. You don't just like line up and wait your turn. That's just like, like not a thing.
• 35:48
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 35:48
  Speaker A: You know what I mean? And so, you know, and you don't say yes ma' am and no ma', am. That's not a thing either. You know what I mean? Like, and so especially if you, you know, maybe haven't grown up with parents, you don't necessarily, you know, innately. So, you know, it was it was a hard, you know, and so just some of those basic skills coming from not just the leadership, but also the kids influencing each other. So really, really great program y' all have out there. So tell us a little bit about the garden, because that's where they work.
• 36:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. So it's a five acre garden. It's right on the southeast corner of, I guess I 27 and the South Loop. There's. We've done a lot of. If you haven't been out there recently, you need to look at it because it's. We've done a lot of cleanup out there and put in some walking paths, some sidewalks and stuff. So it really looks, really looks nice. We've had some grants that we've applied for and got to. To do some of that beautification out there also. So that's great. And also put in some much needed buildings and irrigation and things to help.
• 36:57
  Speaker B: And we've kind of changed the model of it. We had a, what was a CSA share program for a lot of years where people could buy a share and go pick up their produce weekly. Well, we changed that this last year to where we're no longer doing that, but all the produce that's grown is going back to the families that we serve, so.
• 37:18
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 37:19
  Speaker B: And in changing that model, what it did is we used to, you know, for people that were buying these shares, we wanted to have all kinds of different produce and not give them the exact same thing every week.
• 37:29
  Speaker A: Right, right. That's a lot of work.
• 37:31
  Speaker B: And it really made it a lot of work and it wasn't real efficient. And so now with.
• 37:39
  Speaker B: We are growing a lot of squash and zucchini and things that really thrive here in Lubbock, Texas and.
• 37:46
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 37:47
  Speaker B: And not as much lettuce and stuff like that that we were trying to do to make that CSA share.
• 37:53
  Speaker A: Right, yeah, well. And that pushes those folks maybe to go to other local businesses that are doing those things. You know, like E3 farms and. Yeah, yeah.
• 38:03
  Speaker B: Frontier Farms and the different farmers markets we have around.
• 38:06
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. That's. That's awesome. Wow. You've made some that. I mean, I've, I've always. I love, love the work that's out there and everything, but I'm, it's. It's. I think nonprofits that think like a business are so smart.
• 38:24
  Speaker B: Well, you have to really, to keep going.
• 38:29
  Speaker B: And the, you know, with the, with that program.
• 38:36
  Speaker B: The reason we have it is, yeah, we like to see youth grow and develop, but really it's to. I Think there's two ways to kind of measure success as a food bank, and one in the older traditional way is how much food are you handing out yearly and how many pounds? And that's great, but we'd ultimately like to see that go to zero, that we have to give out. So to shorten the line of hunger is for people to really have the skill sets to go out and.
• 39:09
  Speaker B: Get a good job. And I know people are. There's always going to be tough times and situations that happen, so. So the food banks never going to go away. We're never going to see that goal happen of there not being a need.
• 39:22
  Speaker A: When Jesus said the poor will always be with you.
• 39:24
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 39:24
  Speaker A: Right.
• 39:26
  Speaker B: But we want to set these kids up for success. And where. Where hopefully these, you know, generational issues that they. That a lot of these kids are coming from or not.
• 39:36
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 39:38
  Speaker B: That they can end kind of break that cycle.
• 39:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And what. That's one of the things I've seen, you know, there is just even exposing them to different jobs, you know, things that, like, you just. You really don't know. I mean, sometimes I feel like when you're in. In your own circumstance, in your own world, you don't know what you don't know.
• 40:04
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 40:04
  Speaker A: And you make choices based on even what you don't know. You know, and so you feel like maybe you're making a choice to do something when actually if you had more options, you would choose a different path.
• 40:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and one of the great things that I think we did this year as well with that program is it's always been that they worked all five days of the week out at the farm, and now we change that up a little bit this year where they're working three days on the farm and then two days at the food bank. So they're also getting. So they're getting that agriculture piece, but they're also getting some warehouse.
• 40:42
  Speaker A: Exactly. Skills experience.
• 40:44
  Speaker B: And they're getting kitchen experience for the summer.
• 40:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 40:47
  Speaker B: Where we do our summer children's feeding sites and stuff like that. So they're getting culinary skills, they're getting warehouse skills. They're. They're getting experience in all these different areas to see, you know, maybe.
• 41:01
  Speaker A: Well, and I knew you guys had a kitchen, but I didn't realize you were doing feedings. I mean, you were like, so what is that about?
• 41:08
  Speaker B: Yeah. So we have about 16 sites in the summer. We partner with LISD on eight of those sites, and then we have eight of them that we run kind of independently.
• 41:18
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 41:19
  Speaker B: And they're all either breakfast and lunch or lunch and a snack. But our kitchen prepares those meals, hot meals every day.
• 41:30
  Speaker A: And then we out at the, at the bank.
• 41:32
  Speaker B: At the food bank.
• 41:33
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 41:34
  Speaker B: And we will, our kitchen will prepare those and then they go and drop them off to these other sites, whether it's a Boys and Girls Club or Guadalupe Parkway center or any of the LISD sites. And, and then the people at those, those places are who will serve that hot meal. But we do 16 sites through the summer and then it get drops down to about eight in the school year for after school.
• 41:58
  Speaker A: Wow. I know. I've talked to a couple of different teachers who.
• 42:03
  Speaker A: Has had started keeping like a closet. They would have basically a packer sack full of food, you know and the kids would take it home over the weekend and like they just, they're like we. It's all always, all gone. Always.
• 42:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. And in that space that what we're trying to do is really work with communities and schools because they're who's closest to the situation.
• 42:23
  Speaker A: That's another non profit.
• 42:24
  Speaker B: Yep. And what we would really like to see is that we are. You can partner with them and make sure that their pantries stay full year round at every single school that they're in. So.
• 42:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. We. We interviewed a couple of weeks ago a few episodes back, a couple of young guys that have a company called Beefy and it is slim thinly sliced brisket that tastes like the best bacon you've ever eaten.
• 42:57
  Speaker B: Interesting.
• 42:58
  Speaker A: And it's just like nothing but, but brisket. And it's so. It's not like really salty and it's not chewy, it's like crispy.
• 43:05
  Speaker B: It's not the, it's amazing. The. Oh, what was the Toma Bingo's.
• 43:11
  Speaker A: It's them. Okay, that's them.
• 43:13
  Speaker B: That's what I thought.
• 43:14
  Speaker A: But we got off on a little side trail because they're really interested in the food that kids are getting in school. Like what is this, is this food healthy? Is it, is it good for them? You know and, and, and trying to figure out how to work with their own schools to you know, come along those lunch beside the lunch ladies.
• 43:34
  Speaker B: Yep. Well that's really cool. And you know there's a balance there I think to. Because especially from when you're some of these entitlement programs or how you're giving out food is you know, kind of balancing nutritional value versus what they're going to eat.
• 43:51
  Speaker A: Not throw away. Yes. Yeah.
• 43:53
  Speaker B: Normal and not being singled out what they have so that you know, whether it's the nutritional value of it or whether it's the label, you know that you can tell that it's a USD product. Yeah, snacks. So. So it's kind of a balancing act of what you right do there. But it's great with a product like that that can be cool.
• 44:13
  Speaker A: Well, they're not particularly in their product but they are like, I mean they're their product. They are, they have a great, it's just a great episode. People should go listen to it. But they have another business plan. But their interest is just like completely separate from that their food. They're just like in creating really good food, it's just kind of made them aware of what is being available to the kids. And you know, how can we balance what kids will eat and not throw away with, you know, what is really good for them too? And I think that's a balance too of like what, you know, what people can, can get versus what do they know how to cook? You know, and if you're just giving people split peas, will they know what to do with it? You know.
• 44:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. And that's a, you know, I'm glad you brought that up too because that's one of the. We did food drives forever. So you can share. We have coming up just right around the corner start December 8th where we're on the news every day with KCBD and, and that was a huge food drive for us up until 2020. And with COVID we were unable to accept food donations anymore. So it went strictly to a fundraiser in 2020. And.
• 45:26
  Speaker B: We realized after that year the impact that we could make by having a major fundraiser and go use our buying power to purchase that food rather than individuals.
• 45:36
  Speaker A: Well, I will say. Let me just, let me just tell you a story. So do you remember.
• 45:44
  Speaker A: 1999? Are you old enough to remember 1990? I remember 1999 and what everybody thought was going to happen.
• 45:51
  Speaker B: Oh yeah. When the clock turned over computers.
• 45:54
  Speaker A: So I will just say, and one reason why it's probably good just shifting this way is like we were going through the boxes of donated food and I came across a can of dehydrated peas that were from Y2K. Yeah, they were from like 1990. I mean like it was really obvious, you know what I mean? And someone had donated them. Now they were probably freeze dried or whatever. They're probably shelf stable forever, but still like, hey, these things are 25 years. Yeah, well, do we probably have to get rid of them? So you guys do a Lot of culling through.
• 46:32
  Speaker B: We do.
• 46:32
  Speaker A: And that takes time.
• 46:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. So we could use our buying power to go purchase it. Right. So with me, or you go into the store and spending a dollar, we're going to get maybe the cheapest can of corn that you can find.
• 46:44
  Speaker A: Right? Sure.
• 46:45
  Speaker B: With our buying power at the food bank, we're going to get. Turn that into three meals.
• 46:48
  Speaker A: Right.
• 46:49
  Speaker B: We can also.
• 46:50
  Speaker A: And you're like, less time for employees because, like, literally, that's what I was doing, was just culling through cans.
• 46:56
  Speaker B: Well, it took an army of volunteers.
• 46:57
  Speaker A: Oh, my God.
• 46:59
  Speaker B: Fired. Look for.
• 47:00
  Speaker A: Through. Yes.
• 47:00
  Speaker B: Dented.
• 47:01
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 47:01
  Speaker B: Damaged. All the things that you get.
• 47:04
  Speaker A: So I may have been the last crew on that one.
• 47:07
  Speaker B: You may have, yeah. Because. And then it's like, how. What can we do with all these cans of cream of mushroom soup and tomato paste? Because that's what everybody. That's, you know, everybody has that in the back of the pantry that they. Right. I can. I can get rid of this.
• 47:20
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
• 47:21
  Speaker B: So now we can go out and purchase what we need that we make sure that if we're getting pasta, we're getting pasta sauce to go with it, and it's not.
• 47:28
  Speaker A: Well, and that's.
• 47:29
  Speaker B: With all these peas.
• 47:30
  Speaker A: That is. That's the. The mind of a business person. You know what I mean? That's thinking, like, you know, how can we always make this more efficient? Like, is it more efficient to do it the way we've always done, or is it not?
• 47:42
  Speaker B: Yeah. So that was one of the silver linings to Covid was that is just how much more impactful we could be.
• 47:48
  Speaker A: I think it's really timely that you're here right now, because with the government shutdown, which has impacted. I mean, it really is impactful. It's been impactful to us, too. And.
• 48:00
  Speaker A: I know that it has to be impacting you guys and impacting people that you serve. So what is that looking like for you guys?
• 48:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's impactful. It's, you know, across the South Plains, in our service area, we serve 19 counties.
• 48:20
  Speaker A: Okay, so basically, you're delivering food out to those folks.
• 48:23
  Speaker B: Yep. So from up to Plainview and South Telemesa and then over to the New Mexico border and then kind of over toward King county and, you know, straight down from the Panhandles. Yeah, Our service area. And in that area, there's about 58,000 families affected by the not receiving their SNAP.
• 48:43
  Speaker A: 58,000 families. Wow.
• 48:47
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Speaker A: Estimate. Okay. Wow.
• 48:51
  Speaker B: So those folks are not receiving their SNAP benefits. And I know there's different information coming out on when and how that will look. They'll probably get 50%.
• 49:01
  Speaker A: That's what I'm hearing. Yeah.
• 49:03
  Speaker B: When they will get those, I think that's kind of up to the states and how each state system works. So I don't know that there's any. Somebody may have better information than I do. But right now, I don't know exactly when or how they're going to get those benefits. But. But, yeah. And the.
• 49:22
  Speaker B: And with that. So we're seeing a lot more demand and expecting to see a lot more demand for what you guys can provide, what we can provide from the food bank.
• 49:33
  Speaker B: And then you also have roughly 5,000 people in our service area that are not receiving paychecks right now because of the.
• 49:43
  Speaker B: Government shutdown.
• 49:44
  Speaker A: I didn't know that.
• 49:45
  Speaker B: Okay, so that's another piece of it. Those people are probably not anybody who's. Ever. Or not.
• 49:52
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:53
  Speaker B: Receiving.
• 49:53
  Speaker A: Right. They're not on. They're probably not on snap.
• 49:56
  Speaker B: They're probably not receiving food from the food bank. But there are people that, you know.
• 50:01
  Speaker A: This is a good time for them to be.
• 50:02
  Speaker B: Yeah. When you're. When you start missing a couple of paychecks, and unfortunately, most of us can't afford a couple of paychecks.
• 50:10
  Speaker A: You got a. You got a mortgage and you're like, do I want to lose my house or don't want to eat? Yeah.
• 50:13
  Speaker B: Yep. So, yeah. So there's more folks there that, you know, we could potentially be serving. And then it's really just been a perfect storm this year for the food bank, because the first of the year, there was all the.
• 50:30
  Speaker B: Government kind of cutbacks on funding.
• 50:33
  Speaker A: Right. Kind of just like looking at all of those things and seeing what's beneficial, what's not.
• 50:38
  Speaker B: Yeah. So there was a billion dollars cut from USDA at the first of the year, and that trickled down to.
• 50:44
  Speaker A: That hit us, too, as well.
• 50:45
  Speaker B: So that trickled down to each individual food bank. And how USD decided to cut back in. What the state departments of agriculture got. And really how that affected us locally is that we had 12 truckloads of food that we were expecting throughout the year to get cut from us. And a truckload of food averages about $50,000. So that was $600,000 of food that we had to go out and either purchase or do without. So. So we were able to make up some of that gap with purchasing food, but we certainly couldn't make up the whole. Whole amount of it. So that means that our supply of food is A little bit less than what we would have anticipated. And now on the demand side, with more people needing it, it's just kind of a perfect storm.
• 51:34
  Speaker A: Well, and it's interesting to me because we're talking about now because really, I mean, you know, part of this we're talking about how do we, you know, cut back on. On SNAP benefits when actually we've actually already cut back on how much it may not be snap, but we're actually have cut back a billion dollars on how much food people. We're already giving to people.
• 51:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 51:57
  Speaker A: Wow. Oh, my goodness.
• 51:59
  Speaker B: So, yeah, so it's hit us from both sides this year. But I mean, I think the. We've talked about the. How important the community is.
• 52:07
  Speaker A: Yes, Donations. Exactly.
• 52:09
  Speaker B: So it's more important now than ever.
• 52:12
  Speaker A: For people to come in and. Yes.
• 52:14
  Speaker B: But we're a resilient organization that's been around for 43 years, and we're going, you know, we're going to do whatever it takes to continue to feed people. So I think that that's what I want our message to be is that the food bank's not going anywhere and we're going to be around to feed people.
• 52:28
  Speaker A: And those of us who have money to go to the grocery store. Store, let's donate.
• 52:32
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 52:32
  Speaker A: Let's send some money your way and just kind of help ease people's burdens through this time.
• 52:37
  Speaker B: Yep. And know that when you give to the food bank, like I may have already mentioned it, but $1, you know, provides three meals. So when you give to the food bank, you're. You're really stretching.
• 52:48
  Speaker A: $1 provides three meals.
• 52:49
  Speaker B: Yep. So we really make that dollar go a long, long ways, which.
• 52:55
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 52:56
  Speaker B: To me, you know, I give credit to our operations staff because it's not what I'm doing every day, but I know.
• 53:01
  Speaker A: Well, I tell you what, that really motivates me to give, to know that that is how far my money is going to go. That's amazing.
• 53:10
  Speaker B: It's really feeding a lot of people when you, when you give and. And, but, but. Yeah, I'm just. I'm impressed with our operations staff that they figured that out, because when I go to the grocery store on my own, that $1 doesn't seem to go anywhere.
• 53:24
  Speaker A: No, no, that's great. That's great. Okay, so. So that's a wonderful way that we can then really, what you need is for us to donate.
• 53:32
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 53:32
  Speaker A: That's what you need.
• 53:33
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 53:33
  Speaker A: Okay, so it's important then for people to remember. So where are we going to be able to donate. Are you going to be in all the usual places?
• 53:40
  Speaker B: Well, we'll be in the usual places, but with it being mainly a fundraiser, it's, you know, we're going to have. You can go to our website and donate. There's going to be ways to donate on the screen on kcbd. I think we're partnering with Mighty Wash, where you can get a cheap car wash and then half of it comes back to the food bank. You can text in to give that way. We're going to have raffles. There's going to be. We're going to make it as easy as possible to. To donate. And.
• 54:10
  Speaker A: And that's great. I really just really love what you're doing. And, you know, I do think that it's times like this where you see people, just regular citizens, that are stepping up to the plate and saying, we do care. You know, we may. We may not like the policy that the government has set up. We not agree with that. But that doesn't mean we want people to be hungry, right?
• 54:32
  Speaker B: Absolutely not. And I mean, I think right now it goes to show just how. How great Lubbock is, because in the last week, week and a half, they have really come through from us, and we've gotten more calls from different churches, different organizations asking how they can help. Yeah.
• 54:51
  Speaker A: I saw an article the other day about, like, all these locations across town where you could go and eat, and I was, like, really surprised. Yeah, really surprised. Well, and this has been really interesting. And I've learned. I mean, even though I felt like I knew quite a bit about, I just feel like I've learned a whole lot more. I'd love to have you back sometime and you've got more programs that we could talk about and promote. That'd be fabulous.
• 55:15
  Speaker B: Absolutely. I'd love to come back.
• 55:17
  Speaker A: It was great. It was really great. Well, so don't forget that you can support people right now that may not have as much as you do. And you can go to the food bank. We'll put some links in the show notes for you. And so that you can actually do your part in helping your neighbor, which is what we're always called to do, do to other people. So thanks for being here and thanks, friends, for joining us, and we look forward to seeing seeing you again on another episode.