Author: Kori Reed, ConAgra Foods Foundation Executive Director

About this time last year, I joined Feeding America in Los Angeles for a star-studded, benefit concert in celebration of Hunger Action Month. As amazing as it was to be at the concert, I was more excited to be there for the announcement of ConAgra Foods Foundation’s $10 million donation to Feeding America’s efforts to fight child hunger, including the creation of the ConAgra Foods Child Hunger Corps.

When Feeding America requested funding for this program, I was immediately intrigued with the idea of forming a dedicated hunger corps, a group of people working together to advance the fight against child hunger in communities across the country. After hearing from member food banks that dedicated staffing was a barrier to impacting child hunger, Feeding America studied programs like AmeriCorps and Teach for America to create the Child Hunger Corps.

It was an innovative concept that matched the ConAgra Foods Foundation’s goal of building a community of people who are passionate about finding sustainable solutions to the issue of child hunger.  Child hunger is a national problem, but one that requires local solutions that take into consideration a community’s unique characteristics and needs.

In committing themselves to a two-year program, Child Hunger Corps members will have time to assess the needs of the community, create meaningful programs and share their experiences with future members of the Child Hunger Corps. (Learn more.)

Taking something from concept to reality takes time. Feeding America first had to develop the framework and training curriculum, then recruit sponsoring food banks, recruit and select Child Huger Corps members, and more. A year after we announced our commitment to Feeding America, the Child Hunger Corps has come to life. (Editor’s Note: “Meet” the Child Hunger Corps & learn about where they’ll be working.)

With anticipation and excitement I met the first six members of the Child Hunger Corps during their training session with Feeding America. These are passionate people who have traveled and worked internationally; served in the AmeriCorps’ VISTA service; have degrees in sociology, anthropology, non-profit studies, political science; and much, much more.

Learning about these people and witnessing their passion for this cause, gives me great hope for the future. Feeding America’s thoughtful approach to building a solid foundation for the members of Child Hunger Corps means they will be that much more successful in their efforts over the next two years. They in turn will share their learnings with the next members of the Child Hunger Corps and so on.

I look forward to sharing the progress we will make with with the Child Hunger Corps – helping kids get the nourishment they need today so that they can flourish tomorrow and every day after.

Operation Frontline: Learning to cook healthy meals on a budget
Author: Kori Reed, ConAgra Foods Foundation Executive Director

A few weeks ago, a colleague brought a blog post to my attention. At first I was skeptical.

She wanted me to read something from Shut Up, Foodies. Where was this going? But I trusted her assurances that it was a great post. And she was right.

Shut Up, Foodies had come across the information that the ConAgra Foods Foundation is the national sponsor of Operation Frontline. As some people are, the author of the Shut Up, Foodies post was skeptical about our support for the program. In fact, it was “assumed the (cooking) classes would feature ConAgra brands.” 

With a little research, Shut Up, Foodies learned the truth behind our funding model. Operation Frontline is an innovative, behavior-based approach to helping families prepare healthy meals on a limited budget, not a marketing campaign for any particular branded product.

However, while Operation Frontline does not promote any particular brands as part of its cooking and nutrition education, it’s important to know that the ConAgra Foods Foundation’s ability to support innovative programs like it is dependent upon the success of ConAgra Foods, the Foundation’s primary funder. The company’s success fuels the Foundation’s ability to help those in need and to impact society in a positive way through partnerships with groups that are doing great work.

Thank you Shut Up, Foodies for taking the time to look for the story behind the story. We’re fortunate enough to have the ability to be a part of the effort to end child hunger and hope others will join us in supporting groups like Operation Frontline.

Photo Credit: Photo used with the permission of Share Our Strength.

Operation Frontline: The keys to success
Author: Kori Reed, ConAgra Foods Foundation Executive Director

Nearly three years ago, I learned about Operation Frontline, a program operated by the Share Our Strength. I was immediately impressed with the program and its goals.

Essentially, Operation Frontline leverages the strength of the culinary community to teach families how to prepare nutritious meals on a limited budget. Operation Frontline’s behavioral-based approach empowers kids and parents with the knowledge and skills to make healthy meals with the resources available to them.

Finding innovative programs like Operation Frontline and expanding those programs to reach more people is core to how the ConAgra Foods Foundation makes an impact in the community, specifically with regard to the areas of hunger and nutrition education.

Since learning more about the program and its potential to make a difference, the ConAgra Foods Foundation has provided Share Our Strength with more than $3 million in funding, which has been used to increase the number of Operation Frontline sites.

By investing in Operation Frontline and helping expanding the program’s ability to teach more people about nutrition, food choices and more, we’ve had a positive impact on the people who enrolled in the program.  In 2009, Operation Frontline’s accomplishments included: 

•  87 percent of adults who participated in the program said their cooking skills, and therefore their ability to make healthy meals, had improved.
•  96 percent of kids who joined their parents in the Side-by-Side courses said they enjoyed doing so. And when kids enjoy preparing their meals, they’re more likely to eat them. 
•   69 percent of adults said they were eating more fruit and vegetables after they completed the course than before the course.

Having seen Operation Frontline’s promise in its early stages, I am thrilled to see these types of results that show the program is having an impact on people’s lives. It embodies our foundation’s platform of Nourish Today, Flourish Tomorrow as we work to ensure families have access to food and facts about food so that we can all flourish.

Photo Credit: Photo used with the permission of Share Our Strength.

Knowledge, passion, determination and a belief that the world can be a better a place are key factors when you’re fighting to end hunger.

David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, embodies these traits. While I haven’t personally met David, his reputation, background and actions are inspiring to me.

David has been advocating for solutions to end hunger since he became the president of Bread for the World in 1991, and even before then through his work with the World Bank. David’s personal faith and his faith in the good of others have given him the strength to build a community of people passionate about ending hunger in America and around the world. In fact, David has built a community of more than 1 million people willing to speak out against hunger and in favor of sustainable solutions to help those in need.

David’s amazing work was recently recognized when he was named a recipient of the 2010 World Food Prize, an award considered to be the Nobel Peace Prize of the food and agriculture community. In awarding David with this prize, the World Food Prize organization acknowledged David’s extraordinary work to secure the “efforts and commitment of everyday citizens throughout the world in the fight to end poverty and hunger.”

In part, David’s passion is derived from his home state of Nebraska. In a recent interview, David said, “People in Nebraska understand that there is plenty of food. We do not have to let people go hungry.”

Living in Nebraska now and having dedicated myself to helping end hunger, David’s statement resonates with me. We live in a land of plenty. We should be able to help those in need overcome hunger.

Sharing David and Bread for the World’s goal of ending hunger, I’d like to extend my warmest congratulations. Receiving the World Food Prize is an amazing honor, and one that we might all strive to achieve within this community of activists passionate about ending hunger.

Learn more about David’s achievement and share your congratulations with David via Bread for the World’s website.

The above post was originally publised on June 29, 2010.

If you’re a fan of Oprah, then you know she is auditioning candidates to host their own show on her new TV network.

One of the audition tapes really caught my eye.

Tiffany is from Bowie, Md., with a husband, three children, a full-time job and a passion for cooking. All-in-all, she’s someone who’s just like you and me. In her audition tape, she talks about the challenges we all face in providing our families with nutritious meals when we don’t have a lot of time or energy. Not to mention how confusing it can be to determine what foods are the best ones for your family.

As a mother and wife with a full-time job too, I can absolutely relate to Tiffany’s story. Watch Tiffany’s audition.

But, as the Executive Director of the ConAgra Foods Foundation, I also see another side to this story.

I have a full-time job that allows me to comfortably support my family, but not everyone is as lucky. In fact, according to U.S. government statistics, 15 million people in America are unemployed.

For mothers, fathers or other caregivers who are struggling to make sure they can pay all of the bills and feed their families, the challenge of providing nutritious meals every day is multiplied several times over.

That’s why the ConAgra Foods Foundation is the national sponsor of Operation Frontline, a ground-breaking cooking and nutrition education program that teaches families how to prepare healthy, delicious meals on a limited budget.

In the first year of our partnership with Operation Frontline, we helped them increase participation in the program by 35 percent and the number of graduates by 40 percent. Even better, the overwhelming majority of adult graduates reported they had improved their families’ food budgeting abilities and their cooking and eating habits. 

This is just one way we’re helping families in need across the nation. We hope you’ll join us and that you’ll support people like Tiffany who are also looking for unique ways to help improve the health of our country.

The above post was originally published on June 24, 2010.

Summer break isn’t such a good time for all kids.

For me, summer break was a time for family vacations, playing at a nearby park and enjoying backyard barbecues with family and friends. In fact, I’m sure many of us happily remember digging into big slices of watermelon and savoring ice cream cones during hot summer days.

But for millions of children, summer break means an extended and sometimes even daily struggle with hunger.

During the school year, more than 19 million kids receive free and reduced-price lunches. These are children whose parents are struggling to make ends meet. For these families, knowing that their children can get a free or reduced-price meal at school means they have a little more money to put dinner on the table.

But during the summer, few of these children have access to programs that serve nutritious meals to those in need. We’ve partnered with Feeding America to close that gap. 

Right now, if you donate to Feeding America’s Magic Summer Lunchbox, we’ll double your donation.

That’s right. We’ll double it.

We’ve provide a $250,000 matching grant to Feeding America. For every dollar donated, up to $250,000, we’ll match it.

Your donation can go a long ways. For just $39, you’ll help provide three meals a day to a child in need all summer long. Combined with our matching grant, that means we’ll be providing two children with three meals a day all summer.

I hope you’ll join us in the fight end child hunger this summer by making a donation today.

The above post was originally published on May 20, 2010.

For nearly 20 years, ConAgra Foods and the ConAgra Foods Foundation have funded efforts to combat hunger in America, especially childhood hunger. Our philosophy is based on the belief each child has a right to the nourishment they need to live healthy, active lives and to thrive in school.

Solving an issue as complex as hunger requires building a community of people passionate about finding the necessary solutions.

Knowing that, we applaud Walmart’s announcement today of a five-year commitment to help end hunger in the United States. I am certain that the company’s commitment, along with the dedicated work of many others, will bring new ideas and renewed attention to the fact that one in six Americans and, even worse, one in four children will face hunger this year.

As a member of the Association of Corporate Charitable Professionals and the chair of one ACCP’s committees, I’ve had the pleasure of working with staff from the Walmart Foundation. And, as the executive director of the ConAgra Foods Foundation, I look forward to working with them even more often and continuing to build the community of people who will, I am certain, eventually end hunger in the United States.

The above post was originally published on May 12, 2010.

If you had $50,000, how would you invest it in your community?

That was the question I asked a couple dozen students and their parents when they came to ConAgra Foods for Take Our Kids to Work Day last week. I told them 10 non-profit organizations were requesting a total of $100,000 in grants and asked each parent-child pair to decide how they wanted to invest their $50,000, knowing they would have to tell some organizations yes and others no.

This situation is similar to what I encounter in my job; there are unlimited requests for very worthy causes, but not unlimited dollars to support them all. As a company and a foundation, we choose to give our limited resources to hunger and nutrition education related organizations, so that we can make the most impact with our budget.

These kids are smart! Even before I explained ConAgra Foods’ charitable giving philosophy and how we make decisions about where to invest, they had figured it out. In almost every situation, the kids gave the bulk of their fictitious funding to a child hunger cause and then allocated the rest to others on the list.

While these kids have passion for other worthy causes, they said it was made the most sense to feed kids. We agree.

The above post was originally published on April 30, 2010.

When you think about hunger in the United States, what comes to mind?

Is it an image of homelessness? Drug use? Alcoholism?

What if you knew that hunger is a reality that affects millions of Americans and that most of them are people very similar to you and your neighbors?

Would you think differently about the challenges they and their families face?

The reality is that 49 million people face hunger each year in the United States. Of those millions, nearly 17 million are children. That’s one in six of every American citizen and, worse yet, one in four children. They are children and families who can’t reach their full potential because they don’t have the nourishment they need.

Many American families are choosing between paying their rent or mortgage and buying groceries. In other cases, they have to choose between buying gas to get to work or putting a meal on the table for their family. For the elderly or those with chronic illnesses, it can mean choosing between buying much needed prescription medicine and going to the grocery store.

Whether you’re young, old, married, single, have children or not, these are incredibly difficult choices to face.

To help those who are facing these choices, we partner with Feeding America . The services and assistance provided by Feeding America can make all the difference in the world. We’re proud to partner with Feeding America. To learn more about their work, check out the video below and their website.

I’m proud to say that, over the next several years, our partnership with Feeding America will help create even more new programs and services for those in need, and will help build a stronger community of people passionate about fighting child hunger.

The above post was originally published on April 22, 2010.