BY: Jeannine Carpenter, Director of Advocacy

Two months ago, the Chattanooga Area Food Bank hired its first Director of Advocacy – that’s me, and I feel so fortunate and eager to conquer the challenge of developing an advocacy program to advance the mission of this organization. But if you are like a number of the people that I’ve met in the last couple months, you may be wondering what exactly advocacy means in the food bank setting.

We are advocates

Everyone affiliated with the food bank – our staff, our neighbors who we serve, our board and our volunteers – are already advocates for our work and for our mission. Each time any of us talks about our work and the value of our work to individuals, communities, the economy, and our region, we are advocates. Each time we talk about the food bank in a positive way, solicit donations to the food bank or ask people to visit and support the food bank, we are advocates. The reality is that advocates fill the food banking world.

An advocacy professional in food banking, however, has a unique combination of responsibilities such as:

• ➔ Educating individuals to protecting funding

• ➔ Establishing and maintaining relationships with policymakers

• ➔ Facilitating opportunities for people to access food more easily and more sustainably.

If the food bank was a for-profit organization, I’d have a title like “Director of Government Relations,” and my responsibilities would primarily involve lobbying and influencing elected officials to create or pass policies to support our work.

While that certainly applies to what I will be doing here, it is only a very small piece of food bank advocacy. If our Georgia or Tennessee officials hear a bill in the legislature that impacts our delivery of service or operations, they’ll be hearing from me (and probably seeing me). If our city or county officials have an opportunity to support our work, I’ll urge them to do so.

The reality, however, is that the greatest value of advocacy to both the food bank and to our elected officials is a relationship based on the shared interest of elevating our communities and our states to be places full of opportunity and economic possibility. Despite all the cynicism surrounding politics today, my years of experience working with state legislators has shown me – time and time again – that these individuals are deeply committed to their homes, their districts and their constituents (though that often manifests in ways that aren’t necessarily in line with everyone’s personal politics or belief systems).

Advocacy is sharing information

The most important component of advocacy for the food bank is research and dissemination of information. Information about the realities of sourcing and distributing healthy foods to our neighbors. Information about the resources required to fulfill our mission. Information about how food insecurity is just one of myriad connected issues in the system of poverty across our states. Information about how the allocation of public funds can help prevent unhealthy relationships with food for future generations. Information about how food is medicine and about how healthy food is health care.

This is the information that needs to be shared with elected officials, with the public, with supporters, with business leaders, with policymakers, and with our allies across the region working to promote economic opportunity, equity, and outcomes. Advocacy, at its core, is helping everyone understand not just WHAT we do as a food bank, but WHY we have to do it. WHY people need our help – even if they may be working full-time at one or more jobs. WHY food is the easiest assistance for people to access in times of emergency. HOW food and access to food has significant lifelong impacts on children. HOW people and businesses can help.

Advocacy is filling in the gaps

The fact of the matter is that we are extremely fortunate at the food bank – fortunate to have a network of supporters and allies who are committed to our mission of ending hunger. But even many of those who believe that no one should have to be hungry fully understand the complexities that cause people to be hungry. Even within our community there are misconceptions about why individuals are not able to acquire the food that they need to feed themselves and their families. Advocacy is filling in the gaps in that narrative for everyone and then finding ways to change the narrative and get closer to eliminating hunger.

Advocacy is listening to the incredibly talented staff of the food bank to learn about the barriers that make their jobs more challenging and then working to find ways to eliminate (or at least alleviate the impact of) those barriers. Advocacy is working with partner organizations across the state or country to access more healthy food options for distribution. Advocacy is understanding how a benefits cliff increases reliance on food assistance while families struggle to pay for health insurance or unsubsidized rent and then sharing those stories with policymakers to compel change. Advocacy is creating pathways for economic self-sustainability for our neighbors who we serve.

For the Chattanooga Area Food Bank to accomplish our mission - uniting our community to eliminate hunger by feeding, nourishing, and empowering those we serve - in the most efficient and impactful way possible requires a robust combination of programs, operations, and services – which is what the food bank has and has relied on for the past 50 years. It requires dedicated and committed community partners like those working alongside us in all 20 of the Georgia and Tennessee counties that we serve. What advocacy will add is a component to this work committed to economic and political solutions to combat the poverty system and systemic barriers that prevent individuals and families from becoming food secure.

Advocacy is an opportunity

The best part about an advocacy program is that it is an opportunity for everyone to be involved. Change doesn’t happen in a silo. Change doesn’t happen because there is one new staff member on a team. Change happens when everyone who wants to see it speaks up and makes it happen. Together, we’ll become a force of advocacy for the food bank. Together, we’ll fight the root causes of hunger.