Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Flint Hills Breadbasket on the GMCF Community Hour Show Episode - 222
Karla Hagemeister of the Flint Hills Breadbasket shares remarkable statistics about their new facility and the rising need for food support in Manhattan. After moving to a larger location in May, they're now serving record numbers. With over 2,000 family visits in June alone, Karla reflects on both the community's generosity and growing economic challenges.
• The Breadbasket moved to a new, larger facility in late April, beginning operations May 8th
• Weekly visits have increased dramatically, with 601 families served in a single week
• Monthly household visits rose from 795 in April to 897 in June
• High housing costs and service industry jobs contribute to food insecurity in Manhattan
• Summer brings increased demand as children are home, while donations typically decrease
• SNAP benefits provide nine meals for every meal a food bank can provide
• A family of eight saved $1,000 in grocery costs in one month through Breadbasket support
• The organization welcomes K-State student interns who gain valuable nonprofit experience
• Volunteers are always needed to meet the growing demand
If you'd like to support the Flint Hills Breadbasket's efforts to combat hunger in our community, please consider volunteering your time or making a food or financial donation. Every contribution helps us serve our neighbors in need.
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour, as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. Back with the GMCF Community Hour, I'm Dave Lewis and we have one of our regular guests going to be jumping in here. We are delighted to bring back Carla Hagemeister with the Flint Hills Breadbasket. Hello, good morning. Hallelujah, you are here.
Speaker 2:I don't know if there's a hallelujah in there, but I am here.
Speaker 1:It's Monday. It is Monday. I'm trying to talk myself into it.
Speaker 2:It's holiday week. We have Fourth of July on.
Speaker 1:Friday oh that's right, it is. Yeah, it's the last day of June. I don't think about that day of. June. Do you work on a fiscal year basis, july 1 through June 30th? Okay, yep, today's the day End of the fiscal year.
Speaker 2:So what's that mean for you? Oh, it means we needed to approve our budget a couple of weeks ago, and how'd that go? It was great I have a wonderful board that helps us plan for the future and make sure we're doing things on the up and up, which, of course, we are Great group of people and it's I mean honestly, it doesn't mean much. No, it's dates on a paper, it's where you start things over, but we operate all year round.
Speaker 1:Well, let's look at the fiscal year that we are concluding. What a year it's been for the Flint Hills.
Speaker 2:Breadbasket.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, it sure has has I mean not just the calendar year, but everything that you have undergone. When, when did you break ground? Or we start the process.
Speaker 2:We knew it existed in march of 2024. We did stuff last year, but construction started in january of 2025 and we moved um, for all intents and purposes, at the end of April and we started operating at the new location on May 8th. So we've been in there for just shy of two months now.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:And it's amazing, I think, that our guests walk through the door and are just in awe of a space that looks and feels great to them. Our volunteers are enjoying it. Our staff are enjoying it. It's really gone as smoothly as a big move like that could possibly go, which means that we've had rain, we've had some leaks, we've had some ups and downs and we've had to figure out, you know, what worked or what. Where something went at the old location doesn't mean that that's the best fit for it here, so we've had some transitional stuff, but we're really working out the kinks and I think that we're we're on the right track and we're feeling good.
Speaker 1:We're busy yeah, define what busy means and what it's. How have you gotten to that? I mean, is it just a number of people coming in? Are you seeing an increase in people coming in?
Speaker 2:we're seeing an increase in people coming in. I would say I mean, in all honesty, we have seen a pretty steady increase in people for the entire three years that I've been at the bread basket. We're the frog in the pot. So we started out saying to ourselves 30 people, wow, what a day. That was crazy. That was so busy. And now 30 people is a quiet day and we wonder what's going on. Where is everyone? Just by way of example, our market days now are Monday, tuesday, thursday, friday. Last week, on Monday we had 123 households, tuesday we had 210. Thursday we had 140. And Friday we had 112.
Speaker 1:Are these all different households?
Speaker 2:Different households. So when you top out the week and add in, we have some special programming on Wednesday that took in 16 more guests. So our total for the week was 601. Families were supported by Flint Hills Breadbasket in the course of one week.
Speaker 1:How does that compare to years in the past or days in the past weeks?
Speaker 2:If I go back and I say I'm going to go to months, now Okay.
Speaker 2:Because that's the easiest way. Even if I just look at April to June, so April at our old location we had 795 overall unduplicated household visits, so 795. May we had 815. And June not including today, which is the 30th we are at 897. So every month we're seeing about 80 to 100 new families, so people that haven't visited us before, and then at the same time our guests can visit us once a week. So you've got folks who will come once a month because they just need you on occasion, and some folks who will come once a week because we're just part of that stability for them, who will come once a week because we're just part of that stability for them. And this month, as of Friday end of business, on Friday we had served 1,956 total visits. So once you work in today I told you last Monday we served 123 households I can promise you that we will serve more than 44 visits today. We will top 2,000 visitors. Goodness, In a month.
Speaker 1:What's that tell you about our community?
Speaker 2:It tells us two things at least. It tells us that our community is incredibly generous, that we have a program like Flint Hills Breadbasket that has existed for more than 40 years and that is seen as a resource that has community support to be able to provide support to all of those people. That I'm not here today crying or panicking, but I am being thoughtful about it and I am thinking about it because it also tells us that second end of what it tells us is that there is a greater number of people that are experiencing need in our community. We've always had a level of need and I would say right now the needle is not moving in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Do you have a perspective on what is causing that?
Speaker 2:Oh, you could highlight a list of things. We know that Manhattan is an expensive community to live in, that our housing costs are high, that we are a service industry-driven community. So we've got, on the one end of things, we've got a lot of high incomes, but then, on the flip of it, we've got a lot of folks who are I think just last week or the week before you talked with Tara Clausen about Alice asset-limited, income-constra, constrained employed. So we have a lot of people who are working but don't necessarily earn enough money in their paycheck to meet their basic living expenses or have room for the emergency, the medical bill, the air conditioning that goes out, the flat tire on a car. And we know that prices have increased, that food prices have increased. We know that benefits are being constricted for folks. So we're seeing all of those things happening all at once. I'm a ray of sunshine on a Monday morning.
Speaker 1:Dave, it's a ray of reality.
Speaker 2:It's reality.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I guess that's one of the things that I like to make sure that people understand is that I can be excited about a great new location, and I truly am, but the reality is is that many people in our community are experiencing higher levels of need, new need, or maybe that they needed us 20 years ago, got on the right track, got their feet on the ground.
Speaker 1:And the timing of a new location then, in essence, couldn't be any better.
Speaker 2:You are absolutely correct about that. When I look at what we were doing in a tiny space, it's just mind-boggling. We could not serve this volume of people. It would be. Maybe we could do it. It would be miserable. It would be miserable for our guests, for our volunteers, for our staff, and we certainly couldn't do it with the dignity and care that we're doing it with now.
Speaker 1:Speaking of let's just call it human resources. You talk about staff. You have a tremendous number of volunteers we do and you also have interns.
Speaker 2:We do.
Speaker 1:And you brought one for show and tell. Day on the GMCF Community Hour.
Speaker 2:And she's willing, she is game to be part of the tell. I'm really excited for that.
Speaker 1:Good morning Mia. Correct, correct. Mia. Tell me, let's pull that microphone a little bit or scoot up a little. There you go, there you go. Tell me about yourself, mia.
Speaker 3:What's your last name? My name is Mia Wells. I'm going to enter my second year of the Master's of Public Administration program at K-State.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're ambitious.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir, as well as the graduate certificate in nonprofit. And so that is what drives my internship this summer in a nonprofit, very passionate about that sector.
Speaker 1:What is it about working with the public that intrigues you?
Speaker 3:What intrigues me about working with the public? That intrigues you. What intrigues me about working with the public is that, first, it's a passion that just came naturally and, second, the need is there, and it's always going to be there and the needs are different as well as the community is always going to be there.
Speaker 1:Where are you from?
Speaker 3:45 minutes west of Chicago.
Speaker 1:Oh, does the town have a name?
Speaker 3:Batavia, Illinois.
Speaker 1:What brought you to Kansas State?
Speaker 3:Dad is from Russell Kansas.
Speaker 1:Is he?
Speaker 3:Grandma and grandpa retired in Manhattan, and so I've gotten the privilege my entire life to travel to Russell for a little bit, but start traveling to Manhattan every single year since I was a little baby Now.
Speaker 1:Did you get your undergrad here, correct? Yes, okay, so you've been here for a while. Yes, sir, yeah, what do you like about what happens here in Manhattan, kansas?
Speaker 3:That people are here to help you and want to help you.
Speaker 1:How's that different from what you found in Illinois?
Speaker 3:Independent society. I think the United States is an independent society or culture, and up in Illinois, specifically closer to Chicago, people work for and with themselves. Here people kind of are looking at that collectivist working with and for one another.
Speaker 1:What do you hope to learn by your efforts here at the Breadbasket?
Speaker 3:I've already learned, I think, two really important lessons and I'm excited to learn more, but the two that I have learned. So I'm kind of switching your question. But is people who receive social services do not always need to be tremendously filled with gratitude and happiness that day?
Speaker 1:It's okay to it's an overwhelming and overpowering feeling, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yes, it's okay to feel the the sad feelings as well, um, and then also, carla looked at me one day and she said if someone told me their level of income, that tells me nothing about them, that doesn't tell me about medical debt, it doesn't tell me, um, about how many kids they have. And so every single day, I'm learning those little lessons and I will probably continue to.
Speaker 1:All right, how long are you going to be here with the Breadbasket? Are you just interning for the summer?
Speaker 3:This summer.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's amazing. We have great people that come to us through KC.
Speaker 1:How did you latch on to her? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I reached out to this daily school and I said, hey, I've still got an opportunity for the summer in the great, in the scheme of the move and everything else that was going on, and that was one of the things that just wasn't necessarily on my radar of. Oh, we love having an intern because we have We've had wonderful interns that have come to us through K-State, and so I reached out kind of late in the game and said, if you still have somebody, we would love to have somebody with us and I've got the space and the time and the capacity for it. So they directed me our direction and it's been just amazing. She's been a great help to us. But also, I think for us, having interns with us is, and giving us the opportunity to teach is also an opportunity for us to always be back in touch with our values.
Speaker 1:And there's always an opportunity to volunteer.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. There's always something to do with the bread basket.
Speaker 1:Let's get back on track with some of the prepared questions that we have for you. Um, because you know, when you and I get together, we talk, and we're really good at it. It. Let's talk a bit about summertime and what that means, what the demands that you have at the Flint Hills Breadbasket and how you fulfill those, and what is it you may need to help fulfill those needs.
Speaker 2:Well, these days I'm pretty much telling folks there's not much I will turn down, because with that increase in families you can just see as much comes in is going right back out again. But summertime in particular is always going to be a time where there's more people coming in because kids are home from school. So if you've had a kid in your household during the summer months you know that they like to eat Some of the programs, that although we have got obviously summer feeding programs through the school district and other stuff, the more hours your kids spend at home, the more time that they're spending at the cabinet or at the refrigerator looking for snacks or something. We also know that a lot of our organizations just aren't. They're in summer mode. So businesses, they've got people on vacation, that everybody is just kind of doing their own thing during the summer months.
Speaker 2:So it's a time period where some of those donations kind of dip down a little bit. So we're not thinking about it like we do at the holidays or end of school type of things. Summer for a lot of families is just a time to escape, spend time with their families and stuff. So it doesn't necessarily always equate into a big bump. For us it's more of a lull in the time of donations. So I like to bring people's awareness to that because it's that double hit. It's the double hit of we've got more people who need our support at the same time that we're having a little bit of a lull in donations.
Speaker 1:Let's talk a bit about meeting some of those needs, and you know there's all kinds of policies that you have in play that sometimes can be absolutely beneficial, but there also has to be some workable opportunities to make sure that you fulfill the needs of the people that may lie outside some of the things that you do policy-wise. How's that challenge these days?
Speaker 2:We just always have to remember that we live in a greater society, we live in a community, we live in a state, we live in a nation, and that the policies that are happening all across whether it's a local, regional, state or national those have impacts on us In particular. Right now we are talking and looking at the impact to SNAP benefits for our guests and for people who maybe are not needing to come to us right now because they have that safety net of their SNAP benefits, but if those benefits go away, they will absolutely be visiting us A lot of concern there about that these days.
Speaker 2:There is a lot of concern about that. I think people don't always understand the benefit that SNAP has, the efficiency and the benefit for every meal that I can provide through the bread basket or that Harvesters provides or any food program provides. Snap benefits provide nine so I can provide one meal at the same value or cost that SNAP benefits can provide nine meals. So if you think about it, losing that benefit is not just a one-to-one ratio, it's not just I have to replace that one meal. I'm looking at replacing the nine meals.
Speaker 1:We don't really get into the politics of everything, but you know, there is a sentiment and there's many people that have this sentiment that there are a lot of people that take advantage of the system. Do you see that here locally?
Speaker 2:I don't. I really don't Snap benefits or benefits just in general, but I'll stay with Snap. It's a 27 page application that requires it requires a lot of information. It requires bank information, asset information, requires you to be down. You can't have a savings account and apply for SNAP or qualify for SNAP, so there's a lot of requirements in place already, and it requires reporting to your recertification or reporting back in, and so it's a program that is really a lifeline for families and it has a lot of checks and balances in it already.
Speaker 2:Do I have time to share one quick story, really quick, okay. Got an email from a guest the other day that I'm just going to read. I'll be fast about it. This was a Friday email For the month of June. I've been able to visit. I'll be fast about it. This was a Friday email For the month of June. I've been able to visit the breadbasket every week and I'm so grateful for the change in hours that now fit my schedule as a student. The previous hours made it impossible for me to come, so this new schedule has truly been a blessing. In May I faced a difficult moment when I received a letter saying that I had lost my SNAP benefits. I cried when I saw it.
Speaker 2:Being a family of eight, groceries are a huge expense.
Speaker 2:Usually I spend over a thousand dollars each month at the grocery store just to feed my family dinner during the school year. But thanks to the support from the food pantry this June I've been able to stop going to the store for that weekly expense, which has saved me around a thousand dollars. The assistance has allowed me to do so much more enrolling my kids in summer camp, packing their lunches, buying clothes for my daughter, saving for school clothes and even starting a daycare to create a better future for my family. The love, effort and heart that everyone at the pantry puts into their work have truly made this possible for us. Words cannot fully express the relief and gratitude I feel, especially when I think about the worry of how to feed my family and what we'll have for dinner or to eat each day. I feel so blessed and I just want to take a moment to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. The kindness and friendliness from everyone I've met there mean the world to me and my family.
Speaker 1:Thanks from a family of eight, and that's why we have the Flynn Hills bread basket. It is. It said it all. What a wonderful testimonial.
Speaker 2:It said it all.
Speaker 1:Did you cry when you read that? Sure did yeah.
Speaker 2:Sure did, and I think that that's the story. That family lost their benefits and we were the stopgap, we were the thing that came in and I'm so glad that we can do that. I hate that we have to.
Speaker 1:And the demand's only going to increase. That's true, got to roll. Carla, always a delight to have you and thanks for sharing your story. Same and Mia Wells delighted to see you and have you in, and thanks for playing along with Carla and the work that you do, and good luck to you in your future.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:After the break, we're going to be talking about the YES Fund, which is getting launched tomorrow. Debbie Mercer is waiting in the wings and Vern Henricks is going to be back. It's the GMCF Community Hour. Every Monday morning we get to do this here on NewsRadio KMAN.