Urgent Update from Executive Director Tom Bonderenko

Dear Friends,

This week, I've had to make the painful decision to reduce the services that we provide to our clients.  I've had to do this because we have not received funding from a primary federal grant - the Ryan White Care Act - that we use to provide food to people living with AIDS. 

For the past 3 months, we have continued to care for our clients and have not been reimbursed for these services.  Financially we cannot maintain this level of service, and so I have made the following difficult changes: 

• Service to our weekly clients will be reduced - clients will receive 36 meals a month, a 50% reduction in food.
• Our clients who receive daily meals will now only receive 12 meals a week (as opposed to 18) and will only get a delivery 2 days a week, not each day.
• Affected children of our clients will begin to be removed from service.

These are difficult changes to make and myself and our staff have worked to develop a plan that will allow us to continue serving our clients as fully as possible.  Our goal is that ALL clients will continue to receive some level of food services, and that our most seriously ill clients will be given priority.  For many of the men and women receiving service, Moveable Feast is their only resource for food. 

Please know that the generous support from donors and volunteers, like you, has given us the ability to continue providing services over the past 3 months, even without the funding from the grant.  Additionally, you have helped us to remain strong since the recession began in the Fall of 2008.  We have not had to remove any clients from service or reduce the food we provide to them because time and again, our donors and volunteers support us and value our work to FEED people, FIGHT disease and FOSTER hope. 

I need your support again during this difficult time.  Please, donate today, and don't forget to Dine Out for Life on September 22nd.  Your generosity continues to make a difference.

Thank you for caring about our clients and the work that we do.  We will continue to keep you informed through our website, social media and email communication. 

Gratefully,

Tom Bonderenko 

Ending Hunger Now

Recently, TED, an innovative series of conferences on “Ideas worth spreading,” posted a talk by Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN’s World Food Program. In her 18 minutes on the stage, Sheeran tackles the topic of global malnutrition and her vision for ending hunger now.

While Sheeran primary speaks to the devastation of hunger and starvation internationally, her message still applies to our struggle with food in Maryland:

1.       Access to food, not abundance of food, is a major barrier to addressing hunger (think Baltimore food deserts*, lack of transportation or low mobility, poverty)

2.        80% of people worldwide have no food safety net  (our clients struggle with both poverty and severe illnesses--- most have no traditional support system to turn to in times of crisis)

3.       Addressing hunger is more than a compassionate cause – there are true economic benefits gained by investing in healthier citizens (on the local scale, think lower emergency room costs, more self-sufficient and unified families, more productive community members)   

Here at Moveable Feast, we believe that healthy, nutritious food is a right – and we provide it at no cost to both our clients and their dependent children – knowing that at the very core of what we do is hunger relief.  

As Josette Sheeran puts it, “We cannot afford to not invest in the access to adequate, affordable nutrition for all of humanity.”  

*According to the CDC, food deserts are areas where residents lack access to affordable foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet.