While it?s true that man doesn?t live by bread alone, without a sufficient supply of it life itself is diminished ? a fact that one local nonprofit is underscoring by recruiting to ensure its outreach to the state?s hungry will continue into the future.
“When I took this job at the Vermont Food Bank 9 1/2 years ago, I told myself that executive directors should move on [after 10 years] so the organization can get some fresh blood and new direction,” said incoming Maryland Food Bank Executive Director Deborah Flateman.
“Serendipitously,” added Flateman. “I got a phone call from the recruiting company working for the Maryland Food Bank. And the deeper I got into the interview process, the more I realized that moving down to Baltimore … would really be not just a great professional move but also a great personal move.”
The Baltimore County-based nonprofit, a food distribution intermediary that formed in 1979 and now supplies 1,000 charitable food providers statewide, helps serve some 235,000 new clients each year from warehouses here and in Salisbury, according to Maryland Food Bank spokesperson Shanna Yetman. It annually distributes about 14 million pounds of food executing this mission.
Counting food costs, Yetman explained, the organization operates on a budget of $21 million, which covers salaries for its 53 paid employees and work with its 7,000 volunteers per year. It is funded through private donations and government grants.
By contrast Flateman?s Vermont Food Bank has a $8.5 million annual budget, a staff of 30, distributes 6.5 million pounds of food per year, and serves 270 hunger-relieving agencies throughout that state.
“We work with Giant Food, Safeway, Super Fresh, and they?ll donate [nonperishable] food to us,” Yetman said from the charity?s 87,000 square foot warehouse on Halethorpe Farms Road, “and we?ll give it to the emergency soup kitchens.”
Bill Ewing, the food bank?s outgoing executive director, who counts 28 years of expanding the organization?s impact to statewide proportions as one of his job?s greatest satisfactions, will depart on Feb. 2 and head for Flateman?s neck of the woods.
“I?m moving up to Maine,” he said. “I?ve lived in Baltimore for 64 years ? all of my adult life ? and I want to make sure I have a new adventure before I die. My hope is that I?ve accumulated enough experience, wisdom and energy that I can [still] get something interesting.”
