This is Jennifer Peterson, and I am really excited that you're here today for today's session.
A reminder that, yes, this will be recorded, and we will make that recording available later today.
I will send you an email once that is all available.
But you can always access our webinar recordings and all of our library-specific courses in the Webjunction catalog.
I will also be sending you all a certificate within the week, once -- after today's session, for those that attended live today, but you can also access certificates in our catalog by viewing the recordings there.
And thank you to the support of Oclc and the bill and Melinda gates foundation and state agencies across the country for their support.
And if you're not yet subscribed to crossroads, our newsletter comes out twice a month, and it's an excellent way for you to stay up to date on all that's happening and all the resources that are being provided through Webjunction.
One of those resources is a learner guide that was created with our presenters.
We create these guides as a tool for you to extend your learning on the topic, but also as a tool to work together as a team or perhaps with other agencies in your community, and there are a number of resources included in the guide that can help you walk through some of the steps to address food insecurity in your community.
So thank you to our presenters for helping to provide that as well.
All right, I'm going to go ahead and get our recording started here.
Welcome, our presenters today.
We're so excited to have here today Christina Martinez, who is a program manager at Feeding America.
Kaia Keefe-Oates, comes to us from the Feeding America child hunger corps, and she is also at the north Illinois food bank in Geneva, Illinois.
And also joining us is Elizabeth Lynch, she's the teen services coordinator at the Addison Public Library in Illinois, and worked closely with Kaia.
So we're so excited to have all three of you here.
I'm going to go ahead and have Christina get us started.
Welcome, Christina.
>> Hi, everyone.
Really excited to be here this afternoon, and I know I'm standing in the way of hearing from people who are really doing this work in an incredible way.
So don't want to take up too much time, but did want to set the stage this afternoon by letting you guys all know a little bit more about what hunger looks like across the country.
And what you can do in playing a role in the solution.
Feeding America is a national nonprofit organization that is a network of 200 food banks across the country that are working to -- are working to ensure that families and communities all across the country have access to sufficient resources to really meet their needs.
For any of you to take a step back and really talk about what hunger looks like in America and what this all means, food insecurity is the official term that's used for from a research perspective.
To identify people that at some point during the year might not know where their next meal is coming from.
And that number currently from 2016 is 42 million people in the United States.
Which is a lot of people that we know that are out there struggling and making really tough choice was how to spend what resources are available to them.
That inhibit them from being able to lead a healthy and active life.
Unfortunately 42 million is about I think one in eight adults, and unfortunately the number looks a little bit worse for children, it's about one in five children, or one in six children, I'm sorry.
I included information on seniors, just to know that library serves people of all ages.
But 5.7 million seniors are food insecure as well.
Food insecurity is kind of a technical term and sounds a little strange to people that might not know it, but really what we know from this research is that households with children are at greater risk of food insecurity, likely many people who are coming in the stores of your libraries are facing might one day face the issue.
We know specifically with families with children -- they have more budgetary constraints, though they have slightly higher median incomes.
They have more expenses, they also tend to have more dependents, including children or adults out of the work force, such as people who are unstable, elderly, caregivers, they'll have more financial constraints.
And more things to spend limited resources on.
We also know households with children have significantly higher rates of employment.
About 70% of families with kids have employment over the past year, and are working broadly speaking more often than not, so have jobs for six out of the past 12 months.
What this means, I know this is a lot of research, but we know families with children have a lot of competing priorities from their resources, but it's their time as well.
And you probably know more than I do, that a lot of families and children are relying on different community institutions to help provide support during these times of need.
We at Feeding America have a strategy to try to meet children where they are at to provide the resources they need.
The Feeding America network, which I'll talk briefly about in the next couple slides, are focus -- our focus has been providing food to services -- food to assaults through services such as food pantries, soup kitchens, but we know children don't always have the same ability to get themselves to a pantry, seek services for their family, so Feeding America is really trying to encourage our network and work with our network of food banks to try to build programs for children already are places they trust, there's a fair amount of slides on research, I just wanted to highlight that child hunger is the a big issue, and it has a real impact on children over the course of their lifetime.
Hunger we know impacts a child's ability to focus, their response to stress situations, their cognitive development, this adds on and doesn't get any easier as kids get older.
Children have -- tend to have more social behavioral problems, they're less prepared for the work force, and unfortunately this is -- fortunately or unfortunately, this is something we can all do something about to try to prevent this from happening.
A couple more slides on data.
I know these slides are being sent out, so I don't want to waste too much time with these numbers, but just highlighting again that families and households in general have to make pretty tough choice was their time, and their resources when they are facing hunger.
So from a Feeding America perspective, there's two resources that I wanted to share that might be useful to you.
A part of what Feeding America does, we have a large research team, and they do a lot of work on a national level, on local levels to better understand the problem of hunger, the central solution, how we can all play a role in this.
Feeding America's completed the most comprehensive study as people using emergency feeding services for the past I want to say 20 years, every four years.
This study is done.
The last one was done in 2014.
And thanks to Jennifer who just linked to it, and it's also linked on the sloids, but from these research studies, some of the key findings that we know that families need to choose between food and other necessities when they're making -- it provide as lot more information about families facing hunger across the country.
So definitely encourage you, it's interesting from a research perspective, to learn more as well as visit map.feedingamerica.org, which is an interactive map that provides food insecurity rates for every county in the country.
This map, you can see a snapshot on the screen, it's interactive and you can see in your community what your rate of food insecurity is, what your rate of childhood food insecurity is, what is the missing monetary amount generally that families are short per week, and try to make their grocery budgets.
This is an awesome tool, and unfortunately what this shows us is that childhood food insecurity exists in every county across the country.
There is no place where this problem doesn't exist, unfortunately.
And you can see from how much darker the child map is than the overall map, unfortunately it's a real problem facing a lot of children across the country.
So we know this is a problem, I'll briefly share a little bit more about what Feeding America is and what we hope to do to have an impact on this issue, and I'm going to pass it over to Kaia.
Feeding America, we are a national organization and have 200 member foot banks across the country that serve every county.
So if you're in the United States, there is a Feeding America food bank that is providing services to your community.
While I think people use the phrase "food bank" loosely, for us what food banks are, are these massive distribution warehouses where donors, government, different sources of food, purchased food is coming into these warehouse and being taken out through food pantries, meal programs, different places where people in need are actually going to receive services.
So food banks are playing this role on a community level to coordinate services, to get food out the door and to provide local nonprofits and community-based organizations and religious organizations the ability to meet the needs of the people who are coming to them.
Last year we served 46 million Americans through our food bank, and agency networks, and that provides food to more than 12 million children in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, so that's the scope of what Feeding America is doing.
Like I said, with children we know there's a special targeted need, and that children even if we have many food pantries across the country, a child is going to have a hard time getting to them, so we have some specific programs that are meant to provide support to children, but I'm going to pause briefly and say if you're wondering what your local food bank is, the link is on this slide in the chat box, and for those of you that are in states where it maybe looks like there's not a food bank close to you, like I said -- provide services on the county level, so regardless of your actual food bank that serves your area, it might be quite far away, for example, if you are in North Dakota, there is a food bank there that is able to help provide support in your community.
So through our targeted programs, which for children we've got a couple of different ways that we provide the support from a feeding America perspective and a food bank Hispanic, these program names are the most important thing I want you to take away from this slide.
What I am trying to share is that we have different distribution models, but our food banks are  working within the communities.
So for some of you I've seen libraries that have reading programs over the summer that they host a snack at, or a meal, or as you can see in libraries they've got a small pantry where families can access food there.
So this slide is to show there are many different programs of how we're trying to target children in the families specifically.
So we're not saying here's the one way libraries can partner with the food banks, or provide these resources in their community, but to share there are many different ways and that we want these programs to be really successful in the communities, and it's hard for me to say what that is.
So it's really our hope that through our network of food banks and their network of agencies that we're really able to make a positive impact on hunger in the community, but we know that's not something that we're going to do just by ourselves, it takes partnerships, it takes a lot of hard work.
So that is all I have to share from the national perspective.
More excited to hand this over to Kaia and Elizabeth, who are going share an action.
>> Thank you so much, Christina.
That was a great overview and lots of things to explore further and I am going to have Kaia take us in to a little bit of a deeper dive.
Thank you so much.
>> Hi, everyone.
Thanks for listening today, and thanks to Christina for giving that overview of Feeding America and the work they're doing.
My name is Kaia, and I am actually -- I work under Christina as part of the Feeding America program called child hunger corps.
It's another child strategies, and I'm placed at the northern Illinois food bank.
So that as you can imagine is in northern Illinois, we cover 13 counties, we do not cover cook county, which includes Chicago.
But we do have a pretty good mix of suburban, rural, and a little bit more urban areas, so I've been exposed to libraries in those areas, I work on any of our child and family programs, but specifically this past summer I worked really close with four of our library partners to try new pilot programs -- I'm hoping you all can hear me better now.
To work on pilot programs, and strengthening their relationships with the community.
So today I'm going to go over just briefly a little bit of what we have done, the northern Illinois food bank, just so I can give you context for what that looks like.
I am also going to talk specifically about what opportunities are for your library if you're  listening in today, and interested in doing some of this work.
And then finally I'm going to wrap up with some best practices before I pass it on to Elizabeth, who is one of our.
>> Lisa: Partners.
-- library partners.
This slide has a lot of numbers, but to give you an idea of how our library partnerships have grown over the past four years, we started one site in 2013, this past summer we had 17 sites, this is not including our school year programs, and then you can also see that we did these pilots that I was in charge of working with.
So it really takes time to grow.
We see that sometimes libraries come to us, some libraries come to us in 2014, but maybe don't start until 2015 or 2016.
And we understand that, and we also see that every year our library partnerships have grown, and I think that is both -- it started with us reaching out, but now it's so many libraries are hearing from word of mouth or opportunities like this and are approaching us now.
So the first one I'm going to talk about is the most common one for us, and what I've seen  nationally too.
There's been great articles published about summer food service in cities like New York, where it's really taken off.
As I mentioned it's called the summer food service program, and it is a federally funded state administered program that allows for children 18 and under in designated low-income areas to eat for free and so I'm going to refer to this as SFSP.
And also another piece of language that's important, I will refer to sponsor, so myself as a  library, we're sponsor, and that means the people directly distributing the food.
So the USDA and a state agency can regulate it and reimburse it, but it will be a sponsor who is providing the food and ensuring that food is delivered and taking care of all that behind the scenes work.
And this program was developed because the goal to feed children during crucial summer hunger months when we see that hunger increase a little bit because we know not only are children home all day and families must feed them more, but also those meals, the free reduced meals they may receive at school are no longer available.
So like I said, I know they've already linked to what I've -- the link you can see on the bottom of the slide, which is a basic fact sheet.
That is the most popular program, that's -- we had 17 sites this past summer but I want to share others too and get into more detail about how you can become involved in that.
So the other one is called the child and adult care feeding program, I will refer to that as CACFP moving forward.
And that is a very similar to the one I just described.
It provides free meals to children 18 and under in those designated areas, but this is for  after-school hours and it must be done with an enrichment activity.
We do have it happening at specific libraries, but they do a program intertwined witness, it can't just be that cold supper or snack.
And we have seen some of our strong partners, they have a strong summer, they continue in the school year.
And it targets that kind of after-school hunger we see, so kids who maybe wouldn't have an  after-school snack or supper otherwise maybe will meet the next day or get a sufficient meal at home.
So if either of these are of interest to you, maybe you're hearing it for the first time or maybe you've heard about it from other libraries or the news, there are a couple important steps to know and would be helpful moving forward.
So the 1st thing is your site does have to be eligible.
And this can get complicated sometimes, but the slide I posted with that link is a map you can look on.
And it looks like this, the screen shot, the text is small, but if you are in a red area that does mean you're eligible and if you're in a blue area, you are not.
That being said, if you still think there's a chance there's a high low-income population where you live, it's still worth checking out.
This is not the final say, but it's kind of your first step.
The other thing is to look at who is the school closest to your library, and what is their free and reduced lunch rate.
It has to be 50% or above to be eligible.
So that's the first step, and this map can give you a good idea, this map provides information on where there are other sites, and so I just encourage looking at that, if you have a chance.
Sorry, I'm having mouse problems.
If you want to participate in either SFSP or CACFP, the next step after you kind of try to see if you're eligible, if you want to find your local sponsor, those people that are actually providing the meal, so some of them are library partners have found us through other libraries.
If you know of other people giving out, participating in the SFSP program or on that capacity builder map you see, maybe the communities  that are down the rooted from you aspirating and maybe they're receiving emails, reach out and ask them.
And then the next step, maybe in a more rural area you don't know anyone participating, is to reach out to the contacts for your state.
So those are listed both there.
It is different for SFSP, that summer program, or CACFP, that school-year program.
And so you can click those links and get directed to the right person if you decide you want to move forward with this.
Just before we wrap up on this topic, I think it's important to know the advantage and disadvantages of these programs.
The advantages are of course that it is free to the children and free to your library, chk leave room for other programming.
Maybe if the meals are free you can budget for other programming or it's not taking a tax on your budget.
Also with the nationwide program, which means there are a lot of resources, this past couple weeks, I went to a couple different summits, there's webinars and a lot of outreach materials which can be beneficial.
And then the meals are healthy, because it's a federal program, there rah strict regulations on the contents of the meal.
So you can feel confident that these are going to be healthy snacks for developing children.
But it's important to know going in there are challenges.
You must be in the eligible area to qualify.
The food must be eaten on site.
Children cannot take these meals and go.
And so sometimes that's not what our libraries are looking for.
And it's important to know that going into it.
Also you want to know there is going to be a lot of regulations and paperwork.
Your staff do have to attend a brief training each year, you want some of that capacity maybe refrigeration to store meals, and room to serve them.
So just know that before you go into it.
Next I'm going to talk about maybe you're already doing one of these, maybe you're doing one of those or maybe after what I've just talked about you know that that is not going to be a good fit for you.
So what are your other options?
You know that food insecurity is an issue in your community and you want to help.
And I am just using examples that the northern Illinois food bank has done, and just know that there are so many more options out there.
One is the direct grocery distribution.
These are free free groceries for families.
That feed the entire family, not just the children.
But it does require more volunteers and buy-in from your library.
Here's a picture of what we did this past summer, we Wentz to a site that had already been participating in our summer feeding site and said, would you like to three times throughout the summer provide groceries to families in your parking lot?
And we saw really amazing turnout and results.
We had within00 families coming and it was just a way for them to provide food in a whole different way than they had in the past.
And you also see people coming to the library and then are able to get groceries or maybe they come from the groceries and go to the library.
So if this is something you're interested in, we approached our library that you can see pictured here last year, but maybe you want to reach out and you want to get this initiative started.
I first recommend reaching out to your local food bank.
That link was provided before.
And just saying I want to talk with someone about a partnership.
Maybe speak with other food pantries or social services in your area who are doing these grocery distributions.
And see what options are available to them.
Food banks, some are -- lifelines are our food pantry, so talking to food pantries might be easier to get ahold of them, and then maybe if they can't help you they can connect you with a food bank.
And just remember to check with your health department about these types of things.
A, they might know of other grocery distributions going on, and B, it's just really best practice because this is going to be a little bit more involved, and since it's not a federal program, they don't already have those kind of regulations in place.
So another option that I enjoyed working with this past summer is working with two bookmobiles.
So if your libraries provide bookmobiles or outreach services of any sort, you can bring food directly to people who can't reach the library.
So just like you're doing outreach because people can't reach the library, they might not be able to reach grocery stores or food pantries.
Also serving a meal or giving out meals in conjunction with your outreach or bookmobile services can bring attention to them.
Same thing, maybe people are coming for the meal but they stay to check out your bookmobile.
And also this past summer we piloted with two bookmobile and we thought to make a picnic  environment.
It was amazing to see kids coming for the books or meals, but they would come, eat in a pick 96 like -- it's the summertime, so they were able to eat outside, and then grab a book before they left.
So what -- if this is something you want to start with, first find out where can you get those food items for free or low cost.
Can you ask your local food bank, I know I probably sound like a broken record on that one, but also I know bookmobiles that have gotten local restaurants to donate food.
Again, reach out to your food pantries.
We also have that with the bookmobile I showed in the last slide, they got food from us and directly from a food pantry and made snack bags for them.
Maybe your libraries are interested in investing in the outreach program can budget for small  snacks.
Or you can consider those two federal programs I mentioned before.
We did kind of a combination of all of those with our bookmobiles this past summer, and we saw success in all of them.
It really is just about finding the model that fits both for you.
And then next you want to determine if you have a big outreach services, figure out what area you're going to is the highest need, and I love this picture, it's a picture of a group of news front of a bookmobile, that is library staff, a local alderman and myself and my manager from the food bank, and that was kind of really, shows a group effort of determining where was going to be the best park for this whooping cough mobile and lunch to be, where was the highest need, where were people going to sit, and so really think about that when you're going -- if you're interested in combining those two programs.
Same with the one you saw in the past, we were very deliberate to pick a stop.
I think the stop we had before was in a trailer park because they had a feeling those children could really benefit from the meals and the books.
And the next, the final one I want to talk about is maybe if you don't believe right now your library is in a place where you can give out food, but you still want to help, what else can you do?
And you always have the option of doing more education and outreach services, because I know that your libraries are going to be community resources.
So you can do kind of more in-depth educational programs, like diabetes prevention program, which the Addison Public Library, speaking next, does, or maybe you partner with local educational institutes or extension offices.
This picture has both a SNAP outreach staff member of ours at the library, helping people enroll to get SNAP benefits, and handing out flyers and information.
And that is of course provided at no cost to the library.
SNAP outreach staff are out there from food banks and other place and they're always looking for places to go.
And you also save -- the Illinois extension office, one of their nutrition educators was giving information on healthy recipes, and those extension offices also will give nutrition information or maybe you reach out to your local University to see are they looking to do a program somewhere, or is it as simple as putting together a flyer for patrons of your library with information on where local food pantries are.
There's people, they're coming to your library for information and you can give that information on that as well.
Again, you can talk to your local food bank for information on that.
And so next I want to talk about best practices.
If you're getting into this, if you're listening today, and you are interested in doing this, what are kind of things to remember?
For any of the programs I mentioned, or different programs.
So just think remain flexible and be aware of your partners' challenges and capacity, when we were starting programs this summer, I tried to be really clear with all of our sites that this was a pilot for us, it was new to us, as it was new to them.
And we could be available as possible, but we also are -- have over a hundred partners during the summer.
So knowing that media response time is not going to be immediate, and we might not know the answers to everything.
And then be up front about your own capacity.
How much time can you guys really dedicate to this work?
Your primary job obviously is working for those libraries, so be up front about that from the  beginning, and then there's nothing wrong with starting small and growing larger.
When we worked with the bookmobile, they only went out one day a week, and maybe in the future we hope to see I would love to see five days a week, but I think it was a really smart move for us to start small and grow larger.
And remember to stay consistent, both in that partnership you're creating for one another,  responding, and staying consistent with your commitments, but also to the public.
We found libraries who are continuously open five days a week at the same time have the most  success, and the ones that are open throughout the whole summer.
Or if you're going to do some sort of grocery distribution, be doing it every four weeks or something to that matter, because that really helps the community become aware of your  services.
And we just know Christina was talking about people who are food insecure have a lot on their plates already, and when new programs start and they're confusing you're probably going to see lower participation.
Also, I want to say to start speaking with people who come to your library, ask if they would like to receive an extra meal.
If you have parents and children coming, ask, hey, if we served a meal in the summertime, would you eat it?
And then also try and find those people who aren't coming to the library, maybe you know people from 84 jute side in the community of -- in the community that don't come to the library, and say, if we provided a meal or groceries, would that bring you to the library?
And then also just be aware of the barriers people are receiving food.
So knowing that all the barriers to people coming to your library, whether that be transportation, cultural, those are also going to happen with food.
So remember that I think we frequently think oh, if there's food people will come.
But it is still going to be difficult, and so if transportation is a huge barrier, can you work with your local department of public transportation?
We do have a library that once a week all the children are able to get bussed over to the library and enjoy a meal.
I know of public systems who are able to -- children ride free in the summertime and they make a stop at the library.
So thinking of those things before you design your program.
And also just thinking of all the partnerships.
I listed a lot here, but there are many others.
If you need funding, maybe a local faith-based organization wants to help.
Volunteers, rotary volunteers, and high schoolers are out in the summertime, and they frequently need other volunteers.
And then maybe you guys have food, but you're worried you have leftover and you can't store it.
Is there a local pantry or soup kitchen who wants to receive your food?
Next, outreach, outreach, outreach is so important.
This picture I posted, you can see we have outreach on our truck that talks about the food bank, that's a picture of me wearing outreach for the free summer meals program while doing something else.
And just remembering that not everybody is going to know about this.
Lack of awareness is a barrier, and also when we surveyed this past summer, people said a lot of people found out from just going to the library, but also social media, word of mouth, direct mailing, and working with local schools were the most successful, what people ranked to be the best ways to get their information.
So if you do start a program, you have to do more than start the program, you have to get that word out.
And then I know Elizabeth is going to talk about this, but the more programs offered at once, the more people who will come.
Like I said, just because there's food doesn't mean people come.
Maybe if they -- if there's a reading program and the food, or there's a grocery distribution and a free summer meal, however you can collaborate your programs, you're going to see better participation and better success.
Finally, just think outside the box.
I know I listed a lot of option, but the possibilities are endless.
Libraries have done so many different types of programs, and I can't even imagine all the other ones that they could do.
So just little ones, can you do story time and a picnic outside with children on nice dismais maybe you don't have room to serve meals inside, but maybe during the summer you could do it right outside your library.
Also, could you show a movie and serve lunch on Wednesdays?
We've seen huge success with that too.
I know you want to push books in a library, but maybe you could show a movie too.
Thinking of making it appealing to children and teens.
A lot of times maybe you're targeting the children population, but what other populations?
Teens or seniors, how can you make it appealing for them?
I love this picture I posted too, I know I have a lot of pictures this, was all food distributed at a school library.
So it all came from anything outside the box, but you can see the food was high quality, and it's just all about being flexible.
So that is all I have today.
I know there's a lot of questions in the chat box that we will hopefully get to, otherwise I'm very excited to pass it over to Elizabeth, who is one of our strongest library partners.
>> Thank you so much, Christina and Kaia.
I really appreciate all the work you do to bring food to public libraries and to our communities.
So my name is Elizabeth Lynch, I'm the teen services coordinator at the Addison Public Library.
We are a suburban library about 20 miles outside of Chicago.
And we have had a lot of increasing participation with the northern Illinois food bank and a lot of these federal programs to fight food insecurity.
I'm going to be sharing my story with you guys, and I know that every community is different.
But I'm hoping that there's something in our experience that you can take back to your own library and it will inspire you to take on this social issue.
So I want to give you an idea of what food insecurity looks like in our community, and I have a lot of numbers to go through.
But I think there's a story beyond the numbers.
And we didn't start by looking at numbers.
We started by knowing our patrons.
We're across the street from a junior high, so we see a lot of young people every day after school.
And we saw the impact of hunger on those children.
There was the lack of focus, there was their behavior problems, and we had students coming to us asking for food.
And we have a lot of staff members who are responding by just using their personal money to store granola bars and other snacks for kids, because we were getting that much -- that many requests from kids after school.
So we knew there was an issue, and that's when we began to sort of look at our communities to find out how large of a problem this was.
And if you look at the census data, the poverty phthalate Addison is about 16% -- the poverty rate in Addison is about 15%.
That's high, but it in no way reflects what we see at the library.
We were seeing a much larger problem than that.
I want to point that out because I think that poverty rate number can be very misleading.
The poverty rate threshold leaves out a lot of families that are low income, and are still struggling with food insecurity.
So what we did is look at the free and reduced cost lunch, the number of students that qualify for that, and that is 70% of the students in our community.
And that was a much better indicator of the problem that we were seeing at the library.
It's also important I think to look at the data that reflects other barriers to accessing food.
So 33% of our residents are foreign born.
And about 50% of our residents speak a language other than English in the home.
So a lot of our community may be coming from a country that doesn't have the same kind of public resources, they may be facing linguistic barriers, they also may be afraid of deportation, or discrimination at government agencies.
So we knew that was going to be a major issue for people in our community in reaching out to the resources that were available to them.
So we began kind of large.
I don't know that I would recommend that, I do think there's something good in starting small.
Starting with what you know you can take on, but we decided to invest fully in the summer lunch program and to provide a summer lunch -- summer meal every day that school is out of session.
So we've been doing this for three years now, and we just finished up our third year.
So we provided a meal on 49 days during 10 weeks, which was about 106 meals to children per day.
That also doesn't reflect the full number of people we serve.
One of the wonderful things about the summer meals program is that they will encourage you to have a shared table, where you can -- people who are getting meals can put food they don't want to eat that day, or it's too much for them, and what we found is that the adults that came could  usually make a meal from what was on the share table.
So we were actually also able to serve adults as well.
So these numbers are actually a little low, but you can see it is quite a large program.
And a lot to take on.
As you might imagine, there were a lot of questions from staff, from the community about whether or not this is appropriate for a library to take on.
So I really wanted to share with you some of the arguments  that we did use to convince our board and our community, and also some of the things we discovered from the program, from doing the program for several years now.
My first argument is that this is simply better service that we would apply in any other area.
So it's really wonderful if a patron comes to us and they ask, where can I get free food?
If you can tell them where to go in the community, or nearby, to a food pantry, that's wonderful.
But it's kind of equivalent to a patron coming up and asking for a book and you telling them there is a catalog right over here, you can go look up that book.
Right?
That's fine, maybe some people will find a book, but we would not be satisfied, we would not think we were at our best until we had walked with that patron to the shelf and made sure that book was there and was the one they wanted.
And that is sort of what we're doing with patrons when we send them to another agency.
A lot of times there are transportation barriers, there are cultural and linguistic barriers, people feel intimidated, they don't quite know who to contact or what to do, what the requirement the are in order to access services.
So any time we can bring those services directly to the patrons within our library, I think that's just good service.
And the problem with waiting for someone to ask is that they may not feel comfortable asking.
When we provide the program in the library we make sure we reach all of the people who might not have ever come to the desk.
It's also of course an incredible way to engage key populations, not just low-income families, but also new immigrants who are trying to establish themselves in this country and orient themselves to a new environment.
And for us, it's also been an incredible way to engage at-risk youth.
Not just through the lunch, but through the volunteering that we provide and that helps us to make the lunch possible.
The thing I think we didn't expect but we have been so happy to see, it's a way -- is the way this lunch creates a community.
And builds community across linguistics and cultural barriers.
There is something magical when you break bread with someone, when you share a meal with someone, that allows to you connect with them on a very personal level.
So we have a table and we'll have a woman wearing hijab and speak Arabic, laughing with someone who speaks only Bulgarian because their children are eating and playing together.
And that is I think something that every library should want to facilitate.
I want to share with you some of the keys to success that we have found in our experience over the years.
We go through each one separately.
I think a lot of people make the mistake, and I'm so glad we didn't right from the beginning, of treating the meals as just an accessory, as an incentive to come in without treating it as a program in itself.
For us, we from the beginning made it the center of our summer reading program.
And also the center of our teen volunteer program.
And so we saw it as one part of our entire literacy outreach for the summer.
And we bring those literacy activities into the lunch.
We have volunteers like in this picture, they're reading to students, the volunteers also come up with craft and stem activities that they bring into the lunch.
And we also bring in social service agencies and nonprofits, so the meal becomes a point of access to other resources that these families may quality identify for.
Like WIC or SNAP, programs through the health department, so the program part of the meal is much, much larger than just the food itself.
The other think I think is really important here is programming before and after the lunch.
So we have programming that begins early in the morning, and continues into the afternoon, and for any library that faces similar transportation issues to us, we have zero public transportation in our community, this is one of those things that makes the trek worth it.
We have found the families will not figure out how to get a ride or walk all the way to the library for 45 minutes.
They will do it, though, if they can engage their children all day long, and get a free meal.
So for us it was really an essential part of making this as large as it's become.
So I mentioned that we worked with the health department, with WIC and SNAP, we also brought in the University of Illinois extension program, and we didn't just bring them in, we worked with  them, we collaborated to develop activities that would engage children.
Engage children who maybe don't speak English.
And we have found that by bringing out activities, we get people a lot more interested in the information resources that the services have to offer.
It's also essential to partner with the school district.
Kaia was talking about the marketing, getting the word out, the school district invites us in and we are able to talk to every student between kindergarten and 12th grade before the beginning of the summer.
And that really helps us to increase summer reading sign-ups but get the word out about this food program.
Finally, engaging volunteers.
We serve over a hundred meals a day, we really could not do that unless we had a lot of teen volunteers helping us set up tables, clean up, distribute food, ask to translate for us.
And if anyone has volunteered over the summer, I'm sure you struggle to find meaningful work for them.
Sometimes it seems like they're just sitting around.
And that was an issue for us until we started our summer lunch program, and now we have teens who are taking on leadership roles, who are seeing they can make a difference in the community, who are learning those first job skills.
And it also play as big role in creating the right kind of atmosphere.
I think if it were just staff giving out food, there might be a sort of problematic tone to the program.
Because there are all of these volunteers and we give them the leadership role of really running the program themselves, it builds community.
It feels like something the community is doing for itself.
And I think that's -- that goes a long way to creating and welcoming environment for everyone that comes in.
So we started our first summer with the summer lunch program, and it was a huge success.
We were so happy with the difference we saw it making for our families.
And Zune after, we decided to begin participating in the CACFP, or the after-school meals program.
We began slow with that, we decided to take a step back, and we started by only offering it two days a week during the days when we had homework help after school.
But it was so impactful that we now offer somewhere between a hundred and 150 meals every day after school when school is in session.
So the after-school snacks, they're really -- they're much easier in some ways than the summer lunches, because they rarely require refrigeration.
So it's cookies, and juice that can sit out.
So it's required less of the library, which I think is going to be easier for a lot of public libraries.
It also -- it goes a long way to filling a gap, because we know a lot of kids after school are not sure they're going home to dinner.
So it makes a big difference for us to know that we can give them some food after school.
But if anyone is dealing with large crowds of teens after school, as we are, I would also say that this has become the center of our behavior management system as well.
You will see a change not only because they have the nutrition that they need to focus and to be their best selves, but also because it flips the relationship that teens have with staff.
There's something really powerful about greeting kids every day after school and saying, come on in and get a snack.
So I don't want to talk too much about that because I know it's really specific to libraries that have large after-school programs, but if you want to hear more about that, I would be happy to talk to anyone after the presentation.
I'm also really excited about our latest partnership with the food bank.
We started hosting these diabetes prevention programs.
I know Kaia mentioned briefly.
So we don't run the program, which of course makes it really easy.
Experts come in to talk to parents and for us specifically WIC participants, about healthy eating and healthy choices.
And it's discussion-based, it's activity-based, so it's very welcoming.
And they also are providing an activity, craft, and a meal for children at the exact same time.
I know if you have parents with young children, you know that sometimes that child care is one of the biggest barriers to people coming in and participating in a program.
So that was essential.
Having that other piece.
And then for us, it was also amazing because there was all this fresh produce.
Anyone who participates in the program can take home whatever -- however much of the produce they want to take.
But there's just a limit to what they can take.
The food bank told us we could then hand out that produce after school with our after-school snacks.
And I have to tell you, we have been really overwhelmed with how positive that experience has been.
We thought that teens might not want to take home lettuce and broccoli, and kale.
But we have not thrown out any produce.
It all goes.
Every single time.
And it is really inspiring to see teenagers trying those foods for the first time.
Learning for the first time ever that broccoli comes on a long stalk.
And talking about how to cook mushrooms, what would you put them in?
There's so much information sharing going O. just by handing out this fresh produce to them.
And what we also discovered, there's kind of this untapped resource of using children to be the  leaders for healthy eating in families, using that as a way to connect families to food, because sometimes parents are working a lot, sometimes they're sick and can't get out.
Sometimes teens are the ones essentially providing all of the child care for their siblings.
They're the ones who are making sure children eat a meal at night.
So we saw that and it became very real for us when we were handing out fresh produce, teens were leaving with bags and telling us the difference this is going to make for our family.
So this is actually for us it's been a first step, dipping our toes to see if we may want to become a food pantry or to host programming that includes more fresh produce so that we can continue programs like this.
So we're really excited about where that is going.
So I know that's very specific to our community and to our experience, but I hope that some of it resonates with other libraries and I'm happy to answer any questions that anyone might have about how you make this real for your community.
>> Fantastic.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth, Kaia, and Christina.
So much great information and really inspirational examples of what can be happening in our communities in collaborations between libraries and food banks, and -- I just want to be sure that we address, there were a number much questions related to eligibility and rules and retirements -- requirements, some folks notice the in their experience with food banks and pantries that people need to have a food bank card, or something specific to be able to indicate that they can receive those benefits, and I know some of those requirements were quite specific to the federal program.
So I'm going to ask Christina to chime in first to talk a little bit about how folks can address the issues around eligibility, and maybe some of the alternatives, or certainly who they could connect with in their community to understand the local situation.
>> Thank you.
Thanks to Kaia who definitely noted that there are the two federal programs that we've been talking about, the SFSP and crch program have a lot of -- CACFP program have a lot of specific requirements, and those are on behalf of the federal government wanting to ensure these programs are meant to serve meals to children, and they just want to be sure that's what's happening.
That's unfortunately part of those programs.
From a food bank perspective, a lot of these questions are more philosophical.
So feeding America has 200 food banks and they're all their own independent nonprofit organizations.
So they can choose to operate a lot of the decisions they make really are happening on a local  level.
But from a Feeding America perspective, we really encourage our food banks, if someone is showing up at your door, they need assistance and they should be provided assistance.
Sometimes when that goes from the food bank to then a local food pantry, or whatever it is, sometimes different organizations have different philosophies on how they want to serve their community.
And I appreciate Elizabeth sharing their library's philosophy on how they're interacting in their community, because I really thought it was great.
So to Anne who commented about food bank cards, that's definitely not something that is coming from Feeding America.
It's coming from a Feeding America food bank, it's not a hard standard.
So I would definitely encourage all of you to reach out to your food banks about how you can make these different rules work.
Someone asked about having a food truck -- a grocery truck come to the parking lot.
Those decisions about whether those are open to all families or whether those are limited to -- if they happen at a school, sometimes schools want to determine they're just open to families at the school, so it's maybe addressing safety concerns that different people might have.
A lot of those decisions are flexible and can be made on the local level.
So if any of you are experiencing weird eligibility requirements like the food carts or different things that, reach out to your food bank, to your Feeding America food bank and start the conversation, because most of those rules I think should be able to be flexed.
And then for those of you wanting to say that you work with your food bank in some way, in some areas, definitely reach out to them about expanding those programs beyond that.
And I think - -- that's what I wanted to share.
Feel free to ask more questions or Kaia you can jump in with your perspective as well.
>> We are at the top of the hour, so I want to be mindful of people's time.
We certainly can add any additional information to the event page, but I just want to encourage folks not to be over welled if -- overwhelmed.
The learner guide that is posted to the event page has a number of different steps really just to begin thinking about either partners that you can reach out to, or ways that you can maybe explore some initial aspects to this work.
So thank you so much to all three of our presenters, to Feeding America for all the amazing work that you are doing around the country, and supporting communities and libraries and food banks, and thank you so much to Elizabeth for showcasing all the great work going on in your  community, and Kaia for all of the excellent work that you're doing with multiple agencies in your community, including public libraries.
So thank you all, and reminder that I will let you all know once the recording is posted.
I'm also going to be sending you to a short survey as you leave the WebEx environment, and we really appreciate your feedback.
We'll provide that to our presenters and it will help us guide our ongoing programming.
And I'll just also mention that we are looking at hosting an additional webinar next year, more focused on the summer food programs, so know that that additional info will be coming in the next year.
So thank you all for the great work you're doing at your libraries, and everyone have a great day.