Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Leah Paley on Leading the Anne Arundel County Food Bank
Leah Paley, Executive Director of the Anne Arundel County Food Bank, shares her compelling journey from AmeriCorps to leading one of the most crucial community resources in the county. Learn how the food bank is operating after 40 years of service with a $5 million annual budget, all while innovatively sourcing food through community food drives, strategic retail partnerships, and purchasing fresh proteins and produce. As the holiday season nears, hear how the food bank is addressing increased food assistance demands through vital community involvement and fundraising efforts.
In this episode, we also uncover the ambitious plans for the food bank's expansion and relocation to a new facility. This move will not only support operational growth but also aim to reduce their environmental impact. Together with the county's food council, the food bank is setting the stage for innovative policy changes to tackle food insecurity. Stay connected with us for more engaging discussions and learn how you can contribute to making a difference.
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Welcome to Pittman and Friends. The curiously probing, sometimes awkward but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman -that's me- and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear. This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County, so don't expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government of, by, and for the people. All right, well, I am here today with Leah Paley, the Executive Director of the Anne Arundel County Food Bank. Welcome.
Leah Paley:Thank you, thanks for having me.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You bet, you bet.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So the food bank has been around for how long?
Leah Paley:It'll be 40 years in two years, 40 years.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, and so, for those of you who don't know, the food bank is at Crownsville Hospital, Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park. It will soon be in a pretty old building, right?
Leah Paley:Yes, it's a central kitchen for the hospital. It was that, and we've been in that space for the past 20 years.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, okay. So we will get into the facility, we will get into what you do, we will get into how you make it all happen. But first let me ask about you. You got this job just three years ago, right?
Leah Paley:Yes, I did.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Three years.
Leah Paley:Who's counting though?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Right? Well, tell us what you were doing before that that led to this.
Leah Paley:Yeah, well, I'd probably have to begin a bit further back. After college I moved down from New York to Maryland and did AmeriCorps for a year. I worked at a school and ultimately fell in love with serving my community and transitioned after my year of service to another nonprofit and eventually got my master's in social work, macro social work, and then landed at a nonprofit in Laurel where eventually I was the executive director of that nonprofit for about six years and we oversaw a subsidized housing program for chronically homeless and disabled and operated a food pantry. And when the opportunity came up to serve my own county, where I had resided for several years, at that point at the food bank, I jumped on the chance to apply.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:All right, good, good, good. And I should say that the food bank has a board of directors and that's who you really work for, right?
Leah Paley:Yes, I have 12 bosses, 12 bosses right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It's a nonprofit organization, board of directors and all the things that go along with being a nonprofit, which includes raising a lot of money, right.
Leah Paley:Absolutely. Our budget this year is just under $5 million, and that doesn't count any of the in-kind donations we receive but let's first tell people why we're doing this now.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I know it's the season of giving and there are a lot of things that you do during the holidays that you don't do the rest of the year. What's going on right now?
Leah Paley:Yeah, so in addition to our normal food distributions that we support across the county, we're giving out holiday proteins and shelf-stable sides so that individuals and families who are looking to enjoy a holiday meal but might not have the means to afford it, can take advantage of that, and this year we actually saw an 18% increase just in the amount of holiday proteins we were able to distribute through some individual fundraising that we did at the food bank.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, okay. So keep that in mind, everybody, as we get to the end and we ask questions like how can everybody help? What's the best way to get involved, and all of that. But let's go back to how you actually operate. What do you do? How do people get the food and where does the food come from? So should we start with where does the food come from?
Leah Paley:Yeah, that's a great question and usually when I explain all of the different ways we get the food and collect it and then distribute it, people usually scratch their heads and say, wow, I didn't realize there were so many moving pieces. So we do get food from a few different sources. Currently, this fiscal year, we have a budget of over $2 million to purchase food, and quite a bit of that has come from Anne Arundel County and we're very grateful for that support. It allows us to purchase primarily fresh proteins and produce, other healthier items that cost more if you're thinking about dairy and bread and baked goods, things of that nature as well as healthier shelf-stable items. And then, in addition to that $2 million of purchased food, we collect donated food. That often comes from individual food drives.
Leah Paley:The Anne Arundel County Public Schools does a month-long food drive that they just wrapped up, Harvest for the Hungry Kids Helping Kids. That brings in over 60,000 pounds of food and the US Naval Academy also contributes greatly to that. So we see about half a million pounds of food and donations from the community. So we see about half a million pounds of food and donations from the community and then about another half a million pounds that comes to us through local retail stores, through Feeding America's Retail Recovery Program, so local Targets, Walmarts, Sam's Clubs, so that one reduces food waste, which is wonderful, but also redirects these resources directly to the community. And then the last way we get food is the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is through USDA Department of Agriculture and we receive over seven and a half excuse me, 750,000 pounds of food a year through that program to distribute to the community. Wow, Okay.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So it's a pretty complex system and you're looking for food anywhere you can get it right, as long as it's the right kind of food.
Leah Paley:Yes, absolutely, although I will say in recent years we've tried to make an appeal and educate our supporters about the importance of focusing on healthier shelf-stable items, looking at the labels and making sure things are low in sodium, low in sugar, that aren't as processed. Oftentimes, when we think about the food that people who are food insecure are consuming, it tends to be heavily processed, high in fat, and then you think about the long-term health outcomes associated with eating foods like that. We want to move away from that so we can help our community achieve those long-term health outcomes.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, so now tell us where the food goes and who gets it. How do you distribute this food?
Leah Paley:Yeah, so it comes into the food bank through all those different ways, and about every single month we're distributing approximately 300,000 pounds of food and basic essentials so that's inclusive of diapers and wipes and things of that nature and we're giving it out to our network of pantries. We have over 70 pantries throughout Anne Arundel County that we support, across 115 distribution locations. That's inclusive of a few different food pantries. There are sites that are operating as Backpack Buddy sites and those are primarily the schools throughout Anne Arundel County, and they're getting a mix of all of those different products and then they're distributing them directly to our neighbors experiencing food insecurity.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, so now let's talk about demand for the food, and I want to go back to COVID. Actually, I want to go to before COVID. Things happen that put families in financial stress, and one of the ways that we can help, obviously, is with food. Cash is helpful, of course. The county, when the federal government shut down early in my administration, I remember we put together a website of resources and food was a big part of it. So families who were working for the federal government were suddenly missing a couple of paychecks, and a couple of paychecks, if you listen to the research, is often enough to mean that somebody gets kicked out of the place that they're living or can't pay their car payment. Usually groceries are the thing that people will figure out a way to eat, and so I've had people question well, I don't see hungry people running around all the time. We don't see hunger, but tell us how it affects a family when the food is provided. Does that free up money for other things?
Leah Paley:Yes, it certainly does, and that's actually one of the questions we ask annually in the survey that we distribute to our network of partners and they distribute it to our neighbors and, resoundingly across the board, people say by having access to the food that your pantry provides, I am able to redirect my limited resources to keep the lights on, to pay the rent. And if you think about the cost associated with someone becoming unhoused, it is so much harder to become rehoused once you are homeless and we want to do everything in our power not only to feed people but also to connect people with other resources that can help them sustain housing and achieve long term self- sufficiency.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay that makes total sense to me. I hope it does to everybody out there who's listening, because you know we have started to take this more seriously and it's been an educational process for me personally, for county government and, I think, for the public. And a lot of it started as a result of COVID that we saw these, we saw the long lines, the food distribution lines. We saw a lot of churches and organizations setting up pantries who hadn't done it before and sometimes we forget that it was the lowest wage workers who lost their jobs in the service economy. They were not deemed essential and the folks that had management positions generally did not their paychecks. So the lines in the food distribution lines were really extraordinarily long, I remember, in the beginning, and so your volume of food coming in and going out during that time increased by a lot. How much?
Leah Paley:Approximately 108%. 108% from the year prior to COVID to the year where it was the height of COVID - 108%. We went from about 27,000 instances of assistance per month to over 62,000. Wow.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Wow, Okay, and that was partly because so many good people were out there doing the distribution and partly because there was some federal money that was made available first the CARES Act and that increased your ability to buy food, right?
Leah Paley:Absolutely, and the thing to remember is we're purchasing at wholesale prices, so we're getting a discount, and that allows us to purchase more, which at that time, was absolutely essential.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, and the supply chains were all wonky at that point, so you were able to take advantage of that in some cases, right? Yes?
Leah Paley:It was good on some levels. And then there were certain products I'm trying to forget this where it was impossible to get them. You would call one wholesaler. They didn't have it, you called another. And we had so many community partners that really stepped up and responded when we couldn't identify certain products, even things like diapers, which aren't food but we consider a basic essential. I remember one time calling the store manager at Wegmans and saying please, is there anything you can do here? We can't find these anywhere, these sizes people are asking for and they were able to come through, which was awesome.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. So I also remember saying at the time, during COVID, that a lot of the financial insecurity and hardship that we saw was already there, but the federal money and the crisis forced us to confront it, recognize it and deal with it, and we learned some great things, and one of them is that this food distribution system that was created then needed to stay, needed to continue, and that we needed to be able to provide that kind of assistance. So I know one of the things we did was an executive order to create a food council and I know you all are part of that bringing together stakeholders to strategize about what we should be doing. How has that been going?
Leah Paley:I have been over the moon excited that we have established a food council in Anne Arundel County. There are several other jurisdictions that established a food council previously and have made so much progress in terms of working with local government as well as with the state, to advance their agenda. One thing that we have spent a lot of time and effort on in recent years at the Anne Arundel County Food Bank is advancing a policy agenda and looking beyond just feeding people.
Leah Paley:Food insecurity has been around for decades and we really haven't moved the needle on food insecurity and it will take policy change. So I am thrilled that Anne Arundel County established by executive order a food council where we can really brainstorm and think beyond just how are we feeding people today?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Good, good, and I'll note that it's not just folks in the food distribution system that are part of that, but we have retailers and we have agriculture and we have, up and down the food chain, the folks who can have really smart ideas about how to improve.
Leah Paley:Yeah, it's been really great to convene folks and there's been a lot of dialogue and I do believe people are working better together as a result of the council.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Good, good, good, good. So I think it's really neat that you're at Crownsville. I know that the Crownsville Draft Master Plan that is out there for comment. It recognizes that you need a better space and that your board has decided that you need to move on. It also includes community gardens in an agricultural area for people to learn about food production and grow food actually on the site.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Historically there was a lot of that and it's a site where I'm really proud of the fact that you're there because I think of it as a place for healing and a place for organizations and people to do good work to benefit public health. So you're in a building that I remember we got a bond bill a few years back to fix the roof because it was leaking. In fact, I remember being in there when literally there were tarps and buckets to catch the rain that was coming in. And I've had a number of experiences walking into your facility where I've marveled at the staff and the volunteers and sometimes the people who come in. Tell us who works there and who volunteers there and kind of what's the spirit of the place day to day?
Leah Paley:Yeah, we have seen, in addition to the tremendous growth of the distribution efforts, the tremendous growth of our staff. As you can imagine, in order to keep up with the demand, we've had to add several paid positions in order to fundraise. Prior to the pandemic, the food bank didn't have anyone on their team who was solely dedicated to fundraising in order to continue our work. So we went from a staff of seven four years ago to a staff of 21 paid employees and in addition to that we've got over 2,000 individuals who volunteer with us. Annually we had almost 4,000 volunteer hours. So the volunteers are critical to our work. We're still a relatively small staff and have a few individuals who drive 15 hours a week for pickups on our behalf and we heavily rely on them. We rely on volunteers for our mobile pantry distribution. We usually have about six to eight people volunteering at each distribution. So, as I said, they're critical to our work.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You had folks from the detention center that were there, that were on a work release program that when I was there. Yes, we did do that, and actually prior to my coming on board.
Leah Paley:Unfortunately, I think because of COVID, there was early release for some folks and then people were not allowed to leave the facility, I'm sure because of the concern about spreading COVID, and so we had to hire people at that time because we didn't have a labor force, and it really has been beneficial to have individuals who are employed on the staff day in, day out, who really understand the processes and procedures. Bringing on folks who have done this work previously in other roles has added expertise to our team and really allowed us to step up our game.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Awesome. Good, okay. So as you have staffed up and as we have all learned lessons from COVID about how important it is to have a really good food distribution system and for the nonprofit sector, with help from the government, to be providing this as a means of helping families who are in financial stress. We all understand that. We all get that. So you've staffed up and the next is the facility. Right, I mean, it was certainly not built for this, and you've decided that a modern facility makes sense. Tell us about your plans and how you've gone about that.
Leah Paley:Yeah. So we a few years ago were considering renovations to the facility and there was an idea to consider whether it made more sense financially to move in the direction of building a new facility. And we did do a feasibility study and the cost differential was pretty insignificant. And also the fact that we are working out of a building that is over 70 years old and has a lot of aging infrastructure. A lot of the systems really are at the end of their rope and there's a big question mark around how long certain things will last. We've had to do some structural work, some abatement.
Leah Paley:It seems to be a money pit and we're not necessarily being good stewards of our resources if we continue to dump money into something that we're not sure how much longer it will stand.
Leah Paley:So we were thrilled to do this feasibility study and come up with the decision and have the buy-in of the board to look to build a new facility. And the cost estimates for a facility that would be a little bit bigger because of course we want to be able to grow into it, we don't want to outgrow it in 10 years is to the tune of $8 to $10 million. But when we looked around, are there spaces to lease? Are there spaces to buy? What would the cost be? First of all, there's not a lot of existing facilities out there and second of all, the cost would be relatively comparable if you're thinking about over a couple of years. It just makes sense to be able to build our own facility and get exactly what we need so we can improve our workflow, we can direct our costs specifically to meeting our mission, and then we can also do things like hopefully reduce certain environmental impact. I mean, we spent a lot of money on utility bills. It's not an environmentally friendly facility, so to try to go green would be really neat.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, okay, so we heard you on that and when the master plan was being done, they envisioned you not being there anymore in the site and, in fact, that building even coming down because, as you, say nobody knows how long it's going to stand. It's not one of the historic buildings of Crownsville that will be protected and preserved, and so that area is part of a recreation area active recreation, correct.
Leah Paley:That's my understanding from the drawings.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yes, okay, there's going to be, I think, across the way is going to be a track and a pump track for bikes, whatever that is. And then you've got you've already got the Campanella building that is an active. It'll become a sports facility, indoor sports, which is what it was created for. So that'll take a lot of work. Where are you going?
Leah Paley:So we have been invited to go just across Crownsville Road in front of our neighbor's Hope House and what was the employee cafeteria. So we're not going to go in there and inhabit that building because I think there might be a tree growing out of it. So we are excited to see that that facility demolished and have the opportunity to build a new facility on top of that.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So, yeah, that was one of the one of the buildings that the consultants in the you know. They had engineers come in and look at all the buildings and they said that one needs gonna have to go. It's it's, it's a goner. Anyway. We like building. Where there has been a building, at least it's flat, if nothing else, fingers crossed, yeah, yeah. So redevelopment of the current site, and I like the idea of having you right there on Crownsville Road. Obviously, you know, the vehicles that come in and out don't have to go far. And I think, symbolically, to have kind of near the entrance of Crownsville, right across the road, a food bank, it sort of starts to tell the story and the right signal that this land is being used for health and to help the folks who are most vulnerable. So I'm excited about it. We are too, yeah, very excited. So you've got some design work done, or where are you at?
Leah Paley:Some preliminary design work, really rough cost from when we did the feasibility study. The next step is to hire an owner's rep and then to begin the process of developing an RFP for the design work.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, okay. So when we talk about partners that will be at Crownsville, that will be contributing to the work there, one of the partners is the food bank, and so you will get that land without you won't pay for it, you will. I don't know whether it's been decided whether that part across the road would be separately subdivided or whether it'll be a long, long-term lease, but we're committed to you guys being there. Obviously, you're going to have to raise a lot of private money. We'll help to the extent that we can with public money. Are you going to be doing a big fundraising campaign?
Leah Paley:Absolutely, big fundraising campaign, absolutely. We definitely intend to do a capital campaign and have already done some research just on what potential state dollars may be available to us, private foundation dollars. But I do want to recognize the county and the priority that you have placed upon this initiative and just the emphasis you've given to it. And it means so much to thus far be able to have operated out of a space for $1 a year on a long-term lease. It really again allows us to direct our time and effort and money directly to our mission. But to be able to have that opportunity in a new facility as well, to have that land on which to build, really is such an awesome gift. So thank you to the county for that.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, well, obviously, you guys, you guys do the work. So thank you for doing the work, because it needs to be done. So I know we got a lot of people listening who want to help and they love the food bank and would like to know what their options are. What, how can people help?
Leah Paley:There are lots of ways to give. I always start with making a monetary donation, because if you make a monetary gift when we're purchasing food, it allows us to purchase more than what you would get at a retail store and also allows us to pay for things like keeping the lights on or paying our amazing staff. So that's one way, and you can head to our website, www. aafoodbank. org and click the donate button. There's also many other ways to contribute. We have so many individuals and families, business groups that come out and volunteer, host a food drive, come out and be volunteers for our mobile pantry distribution. There are so many ways to get involved.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Awesome, okay, okay. Well, I hope everybody will remember it is the holiday season and a lot of us are looking for ways to help families that are vulnerable and you know, the future is always uncertain. I'd say it's particularly uncertain at this moment, and we have vulnerable. You know, one third of our population, we're told, is the ALICE population asset, limited income, constrained, employed, and it's that means, you know, a paycheck or two away from being displaced, and so this food is like money. It is freeing families up from having to spend money on food and therefore they can pay their rent and they can pay their other obligations and make the numbers work. So, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything that you do.
Leah Paley:Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and thank you for the opportunity to just amplify the work that we're doing and just appreciate the support of everyone in the county and especially the county government.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We're the best place for all right? Absolutely! All right. We're working on it anyway, okay, great. Well, if you're listening, look for that subscribe button and hit it, and that will make sure that you're on the list, so you'll be notified about who our next guest is, and we'll see you next week.
