Note: As it is now past December 10, we cannot guarantee that you will receive your gift insert in time to include with your holiday gifts.

This year, because of reduced government support and higher food costs, we anticipate greater need than ever for emergency food. One way we are preparing to respond to this growing need is by adapting ‘Lean process improvement’ techniques.

Lean process improvement is a business approach that focuses on adding activities that add customer value and eliminating activities that don’t. In October our main warehouse staff spent a day in lean process training. Our team came up with more than 130 ideas to improve one single process, of which 62 were determined to have high impact and low implementation difficulty. The team set a 30-day action plan, which is now in the works. We are already seeing results.

Our ultimate goal is to double the amount of food we can distribute within our current warehouse infrastructure. We know this is a lofty goal, but we also know that we need to do more to help the nearly 1300 pantries, shelters, soup kitchens and community agencies that depend on us for food.

30th Anniversary Gala goes retro, moves us forward Scores of Food Bank supporters slipped into ‘80s garb and gathered to celebrate the Food Bank’s 1981 founding at the “Don’t Stop Believin’” Gala on October 14. The popular ‘80s band Starfarm headlined the evening at Noto’s Old World Banquet Center in Grand Rapids. The event netted approximately $42,000 for Food Bank programs.

It was a great year for growing, according to Volunteer Coordinator Dena Rogers. Gleaning (picking surplus crops after the main harvest) brought about 42,000 pounds of fresh produce into the Food Bank—roughly double the average year’s total.

Another big jump: the number of gleaning volunteers. Usually between 200 and 250 people help pick surplus food. This year, 341 showed up.

Concord grapes were a new item for us this year. Also for the first time, this year’s crops included raspberries, green beans, corn and watermelons–along with the apples, strawberries and peaches we depend on year after year.

To learn more about gleaning, or to volunteer, click here.

We’ve just been promised the support of the Frederick S. Upton Foundation for our efforts to expand the capacity of our new Benton Harbor warehouse – but only if you step up, too!

To provide families in need in Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren Counties with the 10 million pounds of supplemental food they need each year, we’ve got to equip the building with a REALLY BIG cooler/freezer and lots of shelving (racking, really) designed to hold full pallets of food.

Help us meet the Foundation’s challenge to raise $20,000 and they’ll send us a matching $20,000 – enabling us to increase the flow of food to the southwest Michigan families who need it most.

Estelle was recently a vice president and general manager with Rockwell Collins, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of communication and aviation electronics, where he had profit-and-loss responsibility for a global support business with $800 million in revenue. He has also worked for years as a hunger relief volunteer and food bank supporter.

According to Kevin Begin, board president of Feeding America West Michigan, “We are delighted and honored to be partnering with Ken Estelle. His leadership, strategic focus, fiscal responsibility and desire to join us on our mission were clearly evident during our recruiting process.”

In fact, Estelle and his wife, Kathy, were active anti-hunger volunteers in West Michigan from 1998 through 2007, when Estelle worked for G.E. Aerospace (formerly Smiths Industries) in Grand Rapids. Following their move to Cedar Rapids, Iowa (world headquarters of Rockwell Collins), they continued to volunteer for their church, as well as flood clean-up and reconstruction efforts.

“Ken definitely takes fighting hunger very seriously,” Begin noted. “He and Kathy helped start a mobile food pantry at their church in Kent County and later supported the mobile food pantry in Allegan County, using our food bank to stock it. Even after relocating to Iowa, they continued to support the (Allegan) pantry and our food bank over the years. That commitment gave all of us clear insight into the kind of person Ken Estelle is.”

Estelle said, “I feel a strong desire to apply my experience and leadership skills to helping people, and in particular to helping relieve hunger. I am very impressed with Feeding America West Michigan. It has worked successfully with many organizations and individuals to provide practical, consistent service to so many people who are hungry.”

Two of the state tax credits slated for elimination make a huge difference in the lives of the clients served by our agencies.  According to the Food Bank Council of Michigan, “elimination of the Earned Income Tax Credit will hurt working families, forcing them to turn to the food bank network for emergency assistance,” while at the same time elimination of the Food Bank / Homeless Shelter Tax Credit will “discourage charitable giving and hinder service delivery to vulnerable people.

You can learn more about these issues by reading the Food Bank Council of Michigan’s position papers on the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Food Bank Tax Credit.

Update: Both of these Michigan tax credits have been eliminated; the change will be implemented in 2012.

From the event coordinators:

To celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day AmeriCorps Members have organized a free showing of award winning, Emmy nominated Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, a documentary by Katrina Browne, at Celebration Cinema Grand Rapids North Location on Monday, January 17, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. A meet and greet reception with creator and producer Katrina Browne and Volunteer Fair will begin at 6:00 p.m., there will be light appetizers available. Katrina Browne will also be available during a live remote broadcast of Radio in Black and White, http://www.radioinblackandwhite.com/, at Celebration Cinema North from 10 am until noon.

In Traces of the Trade, Producer/Director Katrina Browne tells the story of her forefathers, the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. Given the myth that the South is solely responsible for slavery, viewers will be surprised to learn that Browne’s ancestors were Northerners. The film follows Browne and nine family members (ages 32-71) on a remarkable and disturbing journey through the history and legacy of New England’s hidden enterprise.

The DeWolf descendants are confronted with questions that apply to all of us. What is the legacy of slavery? What is our shared responsibility? What would repair—spiritual and material—really look like? There will be a facilitated discussion following the film with Katrina Browne.

Browne is also the creator of Public Allies which is an AmeriCorps program focusing on minority youth leadership development that was created in 1992.

The event is free, but seating is limited. Register online at http://celebrationcinema.com/tracesofthetrade

While he won’t be here in body, he’ll still be here in spirit: we’ve stockpiled so many of his stories and essays that we’ve got enough to keep doing weekly blog posts until well into July! Keep tuning in every Thursday for a dose of inspiration – then go out and share the methods you’ve learned that make it possible to end hunger in America.

John’s recruited a lot of supporters over the years, and they’re all out there beating the drum for client choice, mobile pantries, and all the rest. We hope you’ll join them.

Here’s a video from our newest convert: Kat Rosqueta, the Executive Director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania.

What about our organizational leadership? Our board of directors is conducting a national search for John’s replacement. Until the position is filled, Teresa Pawl-Knapp will be serving as Interim Executive Director.