Sustaining Our Future in 2024

North Texas Food Bank President and CEO Trisha Cunningham celebrates the new year with a focus on the goals ahead.

The new year brings with it the promise of new possibilities and the start of the calendar year is a reminder to reflect and focus with renewed vigor on the theme we’ve selected to guide us through fiscal year 2024: Sustainability.

As I shared in August, we began this fiscal year on July 1, 2023, asking ourselves how we can sustain our operations to ensure that we are able to continue supporting our neighbors as they experience record-levels of hunger.

Meeting a Sustained Higher Need

In FY23, thanks to the partnership of our community and our Feeding Network, we provided access to 144 million nutritious meals—the most ever in our history and a 5% increase from the previous fiscal year. And as we ended 2023, we saw that higher need in our community continuing.

With inflation causing higher costs for groceries, housing, utilities and other necessities, neighbors are increasingly being forced to make the kinds of difficult decisions we hope no one has to make—whether to purchase nutritious food or pay for medication, rent or other basic needs.

The 500 food pantries and community organizations in our partner network say they are seeing people seek food assistance for the first time as they struggle to make ends meet, including neighbors from every zip code, those who are working full-time and those living on fixed incomes. Neighbors receiving SNAP also report that their benefits do not last through the end of the month because of sustained higher costs for groceries.

Access to nutritious food should never have to be a choice, which is why we are committed to continuing to strive to close the hunger gap in North Texas.

Sustained Resources

When I speak with many of our supporters, they are surprised to hear that we are serving needs higher than the pandemic but much of the government support we had to meet those increased needs has ended (both for us and families). Therefore, to sustain the around 400,000 meals we are distributing to neighbors facing hunger each day will require support.

In this fiscal year (through June 2024), meeting this need has meant relying on our cash reserves to purchase enough food. Though we were happy to do that, we know it is not sustainable, which is why we continue to focus this year on meeting our $50 million Nourish North Texas endowment goal by securing cash and planned giving commitments. If we have learned anything from the past few years, it’s that we need to be prepared not just to meet the needs of today but also those of the future, regardless of what economic, environmental or other factors arise.

When it comes to food, we are also continuing to work with our retail partners to increase the amount of food that is donated.

Sustained Hope

We also know that providing food is not enough. Hunger and poverty are inextricably linked, which is why we must strive to eliminate the barriers to food security (such as health care and vocational and financial stability) to close the hunger gap.

We are working with our Feeding Network to develop new partnerships and sustain those that have already been built to provide neighbors with access to food and other services that will support them in becoming healthier and more financially secure. That means continuing to work with partners to add food to places where neighbors are already visiting to receive healthcare and other services. We also want to sustain and grow partnerships with agencies that can offer wraparound services in addition to food, such as vocational, financial empowerment and other educational opportunities.

Thanks to the continued use of data, we are able to identify which zip codes have the highest needs and our work continues to ensure that we, along with our partners and community, are providing access to food where it is needed most.

The number of people facing hunger in North Texas is unacceptable, but we are energized in our work to ensure that each person in our community has access to the food they need to thrive. As you think about your own goals for the year, I encourage you to add helping your neighbors in need by supporting their access to much needed food. Thank you for continuing to partner with us in that work, whether by giving your time, your voice, food or funds.  Happy new year!

Trisha Cunningham

Trisha Cunningham is the President and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank.

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