Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the February episode of Just a Bite. This episode is a little different. We're bringing you live recorded audio from our Friends of the food bank's lobby day on February 12, 2020 25. On this big day, our Food Bank Network and advocates came together to meet with members of Ohio's 136th General assembly, urging them to invest $50 million per year in Ohio's state funded Ohio Agriculture Clearance Program, or ACP and Ohio Food Program. Despite record levels of need, state funding for these programs were cut by $7.5 million per year in in Governor DeWine's executive budget, leaving just $24.5 million annually to serve millions of Ohioans. We're urging the General assembly to restore these cuts and expand funding to meet rising demand. Without action, more families will face food insecurity and food banks will struggle to keep up. We are grateful to our 12 Feeding America food banks and 3,600 charitable relief organizations for showing up, engaging with lawmakers and making our collective voice heard. We also want to thank all the farmers, other advocates and board members who showed up to represent their organizations. Your advocacy moves us closer to ensuring every Ohioan has access to the food they need. Together, we can and must end a hunger in Ohio.
The day was filled with impactful meetings and a luncheon featuring esteemed panel of speakers. Those who you're going to hear from on this Pastor Susan Roark of Faith Fellowship, Manoj Kumar of Sherwin Williams, Alec Buck of Fresh Forward Farms and Fruit Grower Marketing association, and Pete Dorley of Keystone Meats. Their insights reinforce the vital connections between food access, agriculture and community resilience, reminding us why this funding is so critical.
Now stay tuned for live audio from these farmers, faith leaders and food bank representatives who have joined us for critical conversation. We also want to note that while the audio quality may not be perfect, we appreciate your patience and your willingness to listen. Let's get started.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: I invite you all to bow your heads with me in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we come to you in.
[00:02:58] Speaker C: The name of Jesus and we thank.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: You for this opportunity to be gathered together in this beautiful state house with people from all across the state that have a common goal.
Lord, we want to follow your word and pray for our legislatures that are here today and and those that will be working with them or that you would give them wisdom and understanding beyond measure. Lord, protection from all powers, natural and supernatural. We thank you that you brought us together from all over the state for such a time as this. You've appointed us each with unique positions, opportunities and abilities to minister to our fellow mankind.
Those that are often downcast the margins of society. The least of these, Lord. For all of these and for all people, we thank you. For all people are your people, all children are your children. We thank you for the opportunity to serve them. In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:04:18] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
My name is Jori Novotny and I have the privilege of serving as Executive Director at the Ohio association of Food Banks.
What an incredible room this is filled with passionate, hard working people who care so very much about making a positive impact for Ohio and our neighbors and friends that call it home. We are so glad to have you with us today and there's actually too many lawmakers in the room with us for me to name them all. But please, would you stand? If you're a member of the House of Representatives or the Ohio Senate or a member of their team, would you stand so that we can acknowledge you? Thank you so much.
Thank you for being in conversation and dialogue with us today at the Ohio association of Food Banks. Our mission is to support Ohio's 12 Feeding America food banks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need. Our statewide Hunger Relief Network carries out this mission each day through 12 food banks that collectively source and supply hundreds of millions of pounds of food and distribute it across multi county regions in partnership with 3,600 partnering shelters and supplemental feeding sites. When we are able to provide groceries for a working parent to take home and prepare and enjoy with their kids around the dinner table instead of skipping meals, we are offering much more than nourishing food. When someone is struggling in the throes of addiction or striving for stability on the path of recovery, inviting them into a welcoming space with a wholesome hot meal is not only a kindness, but an investment in their healing.
When a child gets to enjoy an.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Ohio grown apple on a ride home.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: From the food pantry where they were treated with dignity and love by the volunteers there, something good and hopeful can grow too.
When an elderly neighbor comes home with.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: A box of delicious nutritious foods and.
[00:06:30] Speaker C: They don't have to skip their medications this month because the food bank helped them stretch their fixed budget further, we're supporting them on their journey to healthy aging in place.
When a warehouse worker or a daycare teacher or a nurse's aide can't make their wages stretched to afford their rising rent, utility costs and transportation expenses. When a one time emergency like a flat tire or A hospitalization sends them into financial instability. We're often the only place they can turn. And we are humbled to help them meet their most basic need for food today so they can focus on staying on their feet.
That's why food banks were birthed decades ago by people and communities of deep faith that were committed to extending this simple but most essential gesture of care. And over decades, Ohio's food banks have said yes to many other opportunities to prevent hunger and hardship, improve food security and address the root causes of hunger. Food banks help connect Ohioans with work support programs that can improve their economic stability. Many food banks operate workforce development programs and provide other wraparound services. We operate a growing number of food is medicine interventions that strive to prevent diet related health conditions upstream and minimize the harmful impacts of diet related health conditions downstream. Ultimately, we want more Ohioans to be able to more regularly afford the food they need on their own by shopping at local grocers, retailers and farmers markets, and fewer Ohioans that need to rely on our hunger relief network to make ends meet.
But unfortunately, because of many factors, including the rollback of pandemic era supports that temporarily help to mitigate even worse economic impacts, and after years of record inflation and increases to costs for food, housing, utilities, transportation, health care, child care and more, Ohioans are seeing their ability to afford the food they need on their own erode.
From July to December 2024, we provided take home groceries to food pantry visitors more times statewide than in any six month period in our nearly 35 year history.
So how are we doing our very best together to try to keep up our response? Our network leverages tens of thousands of volunteers, some of whom are in the room today, who share hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours supporting our mission. We secure tens of millions of pounds of donated foods every year. We collectively raise millions more in partnership with incredibly generous donors that help us privately purchase more foods to ensure a variety of products are consistently available. Many of those donors and partners are in the room today as well.
And for nearly three decades, we have partnered with the State of Ohio and dozens of farmers, growers, producers and vendors on our state funded food programs. Through the Agricultural Clearance Program, we can cover the cost that farmers incur to pick and pack fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products instead of leaving them in the fields to be low numbers. These are products that are generally not considered suitable for traditional retail markets or that were produced in excess of what the traditional market could absorb. It allows us to reduce food waste and offset the cost of labor to get that food from the field to the food bank.
Through our complementary core food program, we're able to steward resources efficiently and effectively to source, bulk, shelf, stable and center of the plate foods, ensuring that popular foods in limited supply from donated channels can still be available consistently when families turn to us.
An independent economic impact analysis of these programs conducted by Dr. Howard Fleeter found that our state funded food programs help to create or maintain 292 jobs in Ohio's food supply chain and agricultural industry.
Not only does the State of Ohio's investment in these programs meet basic food needs today and help people attain better educational outcomes, employment outcomes, health outcomes and aging outcomes, it also serves as a meaningful economic engine for Ohio farmers and producers growing and making food on narrowing margins. So we brought together, as I said, a few hundred of our closest friends, many of whom are still taking meetings right now because we want to pause and celebrate you. First of all, we want to thank you sincerely for being such committed partners and collaborators in our work. We also brought you together today because we are at a critical crossroads. We are always navigating the reality that we may have to lighten the load or unthinkably turn someone away because the food just isn't there on our shelves. And increasingly we are being forced in real time to lighten the load. We simply do not have enough food to stretch it as far as we historically always have. We have about enough on average right now to give five days worth of groceries to each food pantry visitor. That's one to three days fewer than we've been able to provide on average the past decade. That means more skipped meals and more impossible choices for the hundreds of thousands of households that are counting on us for help. And unfortunately, we got disappointing news this week that Governor DeWine's executive budget proposes funding cuts for food banks and our state funded food programs.
Yet. Yet I have hope.
I have hope. The State of Ohio has long been a leader in recognizing that, addressing and preventing hunger. Today, especially by leveraging the power of our charitable network and Ohio's agricultural community is a win, win, win investment. At our current funding level of $32 million per year, the state of Ohio is chipping in about $2 per food pantry visitor we serve. And we're combining our resources to leverage that and stretch it to provide not only five days worth of groceries but also a host of other wraparound services and supports. That is a powerful return on investment if you ask me. And I know that many members of the Ohio General assembly agree. I believe that many of our elected officials on both sides of the aisle. And both of our chambers are champions for food security because they know food security promotes economic security and improved health and well being. In fact, many of them, their hardworking staff are with us again. Thank you. We're counting on you. We know that you will stay with us throughout this budget process, help us.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: To restore the funding that's been cut.
[00:13:03] Speaker C: In the executive budget and secure additional funding to help us cope with the inflationary pressure and historic need that we're experiencing.
We know that members of the O'Reilly General assembly have a monumental task ahead.
I'm so grateful for each of you in this room for taking such valuable time to step away from your day to day and support Ohioans facing hunger and the hunger relief providers they trust in and count on. Thank you.
Please, would our lovely panelists join us now on the stage? We're going to have a conversation together about what? A little bit about what you saw in that video and provide some context and some real world experiences from our partners on these programs. I heard a little rumor that Joe Burrow might have been walking the halls earlier today and maybe some folks might have thought that he had something to do with this event. I wish I could tell you so great hunger relief advocate. We didn't land him on our agenda for today, but we did have four other incredible celebrities who were gracious enough to join us for our panel.
And I'm going to invite them to start us off by introducing themselves. I'm going to ask each of you to tell the audience your name, your occupation, your company or organization and how you or your company or organization came to be involved with Ohio Food Banks. And we'll start with you, Alex.
[00:14:42] Speaker D: Yeah. Good afternoon. Now I'm Alex Luck. I'm the president of Fresh Forward and Fruit Growers Marketing Association. We are a co op of Ohio based, predominantly tree fruit growers in the state of Ohio.
Our group of farmers were came together in the co op back in 1957 and we've been partnering with the food banks in Ohio for over 30 years now.
And I think that the inception of that relationship was when the food banks were looking to work with local partners and local farms within the communities. And us as farmers, we were looking at a way to help provide healthy and fresh produce for the families in our communities.
[00:15:32] Speaker E: Hello, my name is Pete Dorley. I'm the owner of Keystone Meats which is located in Lima, northwest Ohio, Allen County.
We are a fourth generation meatpacking business and our business for all that time has been to raise harvest process and can All Natural All Ohio Meats.
We got involved with the Ohio Food Program, I think probably about 10 years ago, and it's been a great program for us. It's been extremely beneficial for our business and extremely fulfilling for us and our team.
I'm not here to sell our products to this crowd. That's not why I was invited. But a little context is useful.
Our core businesses, All Natural can meet so center of the lake shelf, stable, healthy nutrition.
Our business, you know, that's the biggest part of our business and I think that's what makes it a special fit for the food banks and the Ohio Food Program. And it's been a great program for our business.
[00:16:51] Speaker C: Thank you, Pete.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Pastor Susan Roark from Faith Fellowship in Circleville, Ohio, which is a little bit south of here in Pickway County. My husband and I pastor a faith fellowship and we were both born and bred Pickway Canyons. I graduated from Tay's Alley, he went to Logan Elms. So our community has always been near and dear to our heart. About 25 years ago, the Lord called us to plant church in our community and we're very privileged to serve in the community that we both grew up in and both love very much. So how we came to be involved with Mid Ohio. A little more than three years ago, in December of 2021, a gentleman from our church approached us and said, pastors, I want to start a food pantry and we're going to start it this Saturday.
And my husband and I took a big bump and we said, all right, let's do it. And our food pantry is a little bit different. Our church is outside of town, so we're in a more rural area. So instead of having people come to our church, we set up in downtown Circleville and we take the food pantry to our community. We set up by the old Puree Mill right on Court street so that those people that may not receive services from us can still drive by and see what is going on.
My husband and I, as I said, we both grew up in Pickwick county and we realized that there was need, but we had no idea how much need. And we realized that there were people in our community experiencing homelessness, but we had no idea of the magnitude of that. Our first Saturday, we had about 50 people.
Three years later, we're running between 250 to 350 people every single Saturday.
So the need has grown.
We provide a hot meal as well as a shop for grocery experience. And we have partners in our community that provide Bakery items and local restaurants donate food for the hot meals. And because of our partnership with Mid Ohio, we are able to provide a shop through grocery pantry experience.
And if we didn't have that, we would have to operate a little bit differently. But because of this partnership, we're able to offer choice and dignity to the people that we serve.
[00:19:31] Speaker C: Thank you, Manoj.
[00:19:34] Speaker F: Thank you, Jury for inviting me to participate in this panel. I'm really excited to be here with all of you. My name is Manoj Kumar. I'm the vice president of strategy for Sherwin Williams Spring Company. I live in the Greater Cleveland area and Sherwin has a long standing tradition of partnering with our food banks. Food bank insecurity is a big area of concern in all our communities that we live in. And you know, as I live in the Lorraine County, I've had the great privilege and opportunity to work with Julie and the second hardest food bank team in Lorraine. So really excited to be here. The opportunity for us in all the data that Jori shared with us a few minutes ago in the video and you know, again, we definitely need the support of the state for us to be able to support our communities.
[00:20:32] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
So you can see we have a variety of partners and experts here to talk with you today, which we're so excited about. And as we talked about, we know that Ohio Food Banks and the statewide hunger relief network are working hard to ensure Ohioans.
Can you talk to us a little bit more about what it means to you and your company to be a part of those efforts? Why are you involved?
[00:20:58] Speaker D: I can put in just one simple sentence. We farm to feed everyone, not some people. We farm to feed everyone.
And farming is a year round job that the last thing we want to see happen is at the time of harvest for us to let crops go to waste. So we, we feel like it's our responsibility to make sure that when we don't let those crops go to waste and two, that everyone in our communities have access to that, that food that we grow.
It also helps on some of our excess produce that we grow or a crop that may not meet the spec of a large retail chain. Whether it's something because of a sizing issue or because of the color of the apple. We don't think that that's enough to just let it go to waste. We want to make sure that that still goes to someone and feeds a family.
[00:21:59] Speaker E: Great, thank you.
Very well put. 400ft, everyone. I had a similar thing.
[00:22:05] Speaker D: Sorry.
[00:22:10] Speaker E: I think we all know that agriculture and food Production is probably the biggest industry in the state. It always has been and I would bet it always will be. We live in an agriculturally rich state.
As such, there are companies like mine that have grown through generations utilizing those natural resources and gaining and growing in our capability to produce good, nutritious, healthy.
So that's a huge industry. And obviously put two and two. There are millions of Ohioans struggling. We all know that. Why can't we put those two together?
Well, we can. The Ohio Food Program, I think, is a brilliant example of an ostate program that helped us as a business bridge that gap.
There are many other ways that the organization has done that. I know, but that's the one that reached us and was, has been instrumental in allowing us to not only continue to grow our business, but grow with a purpose.
We, we're a for profit, profit company.
You know, we're, we've been feeding, we've been working at hungry relief for our as our business's core mission. But we sell our same products to retailers and grocery stores like Kroger, you know, so I'm not going to pretend to be a food bank, but we as a company have decided years ago to sell to the Ohio Food Program the food banks at no profit. Let's just eliminate it and provide as much nutritious food meat to the communities that need it as possible.
Now, let me be clear. We derive a lot of benefit from this program, even though we've made that decision. But the benefits are we run more. Any manufacturing plant downtime is terrible. So this Ohio Food Program has allowed us to ramp up our production. The more we run, the more efficient we are, the better we are, the stronger our businesses.
That's the first thing. The second thing that's been huge is employment. We keep our people fully employed.
[00:24:37] Speaker D: We've never had a layoff.
[00:24:45] Speaker E: We never lay anybody off. We keep them fully employed. They get all the hours they want. They make the money they need to make to support themselves and their families. Thanks in large part to the Ohio Food Program. We appreciate that. The third thing we want to point out is as an Ohio meat packing business, our raw materials, our supplies come from Ohio farmers.
So we're not shipping in meat from some far off place. Again, this is an agriculturally rich state. Our raw materials come from the farmers that populate this state. So the Ohio Food Program is an economic development program from our perspective and it's been fantastically beneficial to our business from a business perspective and from a morale perspective, everyone gets behind that, as we all know. Everyone can get behind feeding people who need help. And so we're glad to have that as a core mission and we're glad that we're able to participate in that program.
Put it into the link. I want to put some numbers to it. Am I running too long?
[00:26:00] Speaker C: You're all welcome.
[00:26:02] Speaker E: I mean, on a typical year with the Ohio, with the help from the Ohio Food Program, we ship around 30,000 cases of shelf, stable, center of the plate, lean protein.
So not canned meat, like stuff that's filled with chemicals and fillers, but just meat that is nutrition.
[00:26:25] Speaker C: Packed.
[00:26:27] Speaker E: 30,000 cases is about 18 full truckloads, 650,000 pounds, or in another way of looking at it, about 800 cattle.
So that's not our whole business. That's just what the Ohio Food Grant program is allowed us to increase our business. So the cattle is a big part, too. It goes back to the farmers to keep some employed. It keeps them productive. It keeps the work here in our state and is good for the entire community on both sides.
So thank you for that.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: Thank you for your partnership with Mid Ohio because products are very popular, especially the canned beef. Everybody wants that when we get that. So, yes, it is a true blessing. So the reason we are involved with Mid Ohio and addressing hunger in our area is found in Matthew 25, verse 34. Jesus said, I was hungry and he gave me something to eat.
I was thirsty and he gave me something to drink.
I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me.
I was sick and you looked after me.
Jesus is describing community and that Scripture is the bedrock of what we do and why we do it.
Paul tells us in the Book of First Corinthians that at the end of time there are going to be three things that we faith, hope, and charity. He says, and the greatest of these is charity.
So those are our motivations and what we have seen over the past three years. What we've learned is that food insecurity and hunger is not confined to to one area of town or one demographic.
We have found that hunger has many faces. Young faces and old faces, homeless faces, working faces, white faces and faces of color.
And while we all know that we.
[00:28:55] Speaker C: Have a biological need for food, I.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Believe that it is also a basic human rights and that no one in the world, but especially in this country and the usa, a country that has so much surplus and so much blessing, I fundamentally believe that no one in these United States should experience hunger. And it is up. Yes.
[00:29:26] Speaker C: Regardless of who they are, it is up.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: To us to address that.
As our food pantry has grown, one thing that we hear more and more often is, I don't know what I would do without this. Every week we hear it again and again and again and most often it's that they're people who have tears in their eyes and catch in their throats.
So it is our privilege and honor to be a part of what is happening and a part of, you know, providing to our community.
[00:30:03] Speaker F: Thank you. Since Pete already used my two minutes.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Just kidding.
[00:30:12] Speaker F: I'll kind of make it show.
So, you know, the question really is, you know, we all had different perspectives, perspectives here. And coming from the business side, we still feel food insecurity is a big challenge for our communities, especially as the grocery bills have gone up significantly over the last few years since COVID For me personally, eradicating childhood hunger has been an area of focus since I grew up in India. And I've seen how it can impact children if they're not able to get a good meal through to impact our future lives as they grow up.
So I'm really grateful for the opportunity to be here with all of you to talk about hunger.
And I've had the unique opportunity again to work with the Second Harvest Food Bank. But I've learned a lot about hunger and how we go about helping people in need. At Sherwin Williams, you know, we have a long standing tradition of supporting our food bank through the Harvest 400 campaign that we kick off every year. We've been doing it for over 20 years.
Last year we raised over $90,000 for the Greater cooking area and you know, Island Red Noise I mentioned earlier. And working Smith and Harvest, we continue to look for creative ways, pathways to nutritious food. It's not just about food, but providing nutritious food, including fruits and vegetables and fresh produce, is important as well. So again, you know, I'm excited to be here and all my personal belief is that one day we will eradicate hunger.
[00:32:15] Speaker C: We're going to leave today feeling energized and hopeful and ready, ready to make an impact this afternoon.
Well, we have time to talk a little bit more about something you've learned and you've touched on this a little bit. But if you Is there something really important that you think that our audience, including Ohio's elected officials and their hard working legislative aides and staffers should know that you've learned about Ohio's hunger relief network? What would you like them to know if you could hit something home with them that you want them to know about this partnership and hunger relief and what good things mean to folks.
[00:32:54] Speaker D: I would say the one thing is that with our strategy, with the purchasing program, is how local we can be with the farms being connected to the community. So there are 12 different locations or distribution centers within the state of Ohio, and we have farms growing produce in.
[00:33:17] Speaker E: All 12 of those regions.
[00:33:19] Speaker D: So the fact that we have a.
A very efficient supply chain that really allows us to get produce very quick to the food banks as local as possible.
I think like some, like, kid said that, you know, that we're not bringing in pineapples from Costa Rica or Hawaii or anything like that, that we are literally working within the farms in our communities. So it truly is. Is a local program.
[00:33:53] Speaker E: Couldn't agree with that more. And my father final comments will echo that.
The Ohio food program in particular that we've been a part of, that's really all I can speak to with any personal experience, is that it's an economic development program. It really is. It's fantastic.
You know, the state of Ohio rightfully invests in economic development in a million different ways, and that is one of them and should be considered as everyone is considering what to fund.
We've benefited from it. The local community has benefited from it. Our workers benefit from it. The farmers that we get our raw materials from benefit from it. And then obviously, we're not even talking about the biggest benefit, feeding those who need assistance. So win, win, win. As you said earlier, Jory, appreciate that.
So that's it. Thank you very much for inviting me.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: So what I have learned is that food, instability, insecurity, poverty pass a long shadow in Ohio, and that there are numerous families and individuals struggling with this.
And when we offer food, it's not just a meal, but it's a lifeline of hope and dignity for the people that we serve. We have been able in our community to wrap around the people that we serve and connect them with other agencies providing bio services. We have been able to connect some people experiencing homelessness and addiction to recovery programs. We have been able to.
We have very unique opportunity. We've been approached a couple of times by the court and asked. We've got, you know, a person here that's got some shenanigans. Can they do your community service at your program?
[00:36:06] Speaker D: And I said, absolutely.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: And what we found is these young people are continuing to volunteer after their hours have been fulfilled, and they're learning what community is. They're learning to invest in their community and to serve. We have seen our entire community, the entire City of Circleville come together to meet the needs that are in our community.
And we're demonstrating to each other and to the next generation, you know, what community looks like, what compassion looks like. And I believe what you believe, that we can eradicate hunger in our generation. We can do that.
[00:36:55] Speaker F: Thank you, Pastor Suvin. So, you know, the key message here is, you know, again, the work that you all do, you know, from food bank perspective and the hunger relief network has significant impact to our communities.
You know, you have a good meal, you know, nutritious food, you're able to reduce your medical costs, you can get people back to work and school and have a positive economic impact in Ohio. So I think there's tremendous opportunity here.
And over the years, you know, as we talked about funding, funding has been reduced in Ohio. And so, you know, the food banks, you guys have been very creative in working and doing more with less, you know, identifying innovative ways to address the need of our people.
You know, with food is medicine delivering. You know, one of the areas that we don't talk about much is food delivery to seniors. You know, there's a lot of seniors who have a lot of needs and food, but there isn't a way for them to get the food because they don't have the transportation. So again, with my experience at Second Harvest, we've been able to close that gap and we continue to close that gap with volunteers. We have over 18, 80 volunteers that can deliver food to all our seniors. So it's another example of how the people have taken this task and doing more with less. So again, the message is we definitely need to continue to be funded so that we can continue to do our magic and helping graduate.
[00:38:43] Speaker C: Thank you so much. Would you join me in giving our panelists a.
Many of our lovely advocates in the room are getting ready to go to their next meeting. So I'm going to keep closing remarks brief and I'm going to go a little bit off the cuff. I don't want you to leave here thinking that food banks are only here to talk to you about our state funded food programs. We want you to know that any support that the legislature chooses to make in partnership with Governor DeWine to put more resources in people's pockets is going to reduce food hardship and hopefully keep people from coming to our lines as often. We're really excited to see a child tax credit included in the executive budget that will really help families with very young children who aren't school aged yet afford those really high costs that they're experiencing. So we're here to also talk about solutions like that. We have some supporters that are looking to once again introduce a hunger free campus bill that would help support the institutions of higher education, our colleges and universities, and training technical schools that are stepping up and filling a gap with food access on our campuses to keep their folks enrolled learning, preparing for the job of the future. So those are just a few things we have our eyes on and we're always excited about being in conversation about how to solve this from every angle.
And when we can have healthy, wholesome, nutritious food on the shelves, we can invite people in and extend a helping hand for so many other resources. So in closing, I want to thank the team from Milo's Catering and the staff of the Tax Square Advisory Board for their incredible service today. Can you please give them a round of applause?
I also want to thank the Ohio association of Food Banks team for their outstanding and mission driven work making today possible. Sarah Holt, Stacey Aubrey, the rest of our team, thank you.
I'll close with this. What you do each day matters. Your willingness to be here in partnership and dialogue with us matters. Thank you for being helpers, for being servant leaders and for being partners. We are humbled to do this work with you. Go forth and make a difference today.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Thank you for tuning in to this month's episode of Just a Bite. We encourage you to check out our show notes for recent news articles covering the impact of these budget cuts, as well as our website for a detailed breakdown of our state funding request. We appreciate your support and will keep you updated on this fight. Together we can assure that no Ohioan goes hungry. Until next time.
[00:41:44] Speaker F: SA.
