Behind every meal served is a system most people never see. In this episode, Liz Lowe shares her journey from growing up in a food-insecure household to helping organizations across the country build sustainable funding strategies. Alongside Phil and Gerry Brisson, she explores how funding, relationships, and lived experience come together to shape what’s possible in the fight for food security.

This episode goes beyond inspiration and gets to the real challenge at the heart of food security: not a lack of caring, not a lack of ideas, but a lack of connection. Dr. Phil Knight and Gerry Brisson reflect on decades of experience to unpack why so much good work struggles to scale, and why better frameworks, shared learning, and the Six Dimensions of Food Security may be the key to moving from isolated effort to real national progress. If you want to understand what connects the voices, vision, and momentum behind Food Secure Nation, this is the episode that brings it all together.

About This Episode

Food security gets real when you stop talking about programs and start looking at systems. In this episode, Joree Novotny and Mandy Pullaro break down the six dimensions of food security from a statewide lens—where every decision carries tradeoffs between resources, dignity, and results. What happens when agency becomes the difference-maker? When emergency response turns into everyday reality? And what shifts when we treat people not as problems to solve, but as partners in the solution?

Everyone sees the front lines of hunger relief—but who’s aligning the system behind it? In this episode, Joree Novotny and Mandy Pullaro share how state associations in the Feeding America network quietly connect policy, partnerships, and people to move entire networks forward. If food insecurity is a systems problem, this conversation reveals where real alignment—and real progress—actually begins.

As she steps down as CEO of Feeding America, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot shares the leadership philosophy that helped reshape the national hunger conversation. At the heart of it: agency. What happens when people experiencing hunger are no longer on the margins—but at the center of decision-making? This episode explores the courage, tension, and impact of that shift.

Stacy Dean is a nationally recognized leader in food policy and nutrition programs, currently serving as Director of the Global Food Institute at George Washington University. Over the course of her career, she has shaped and implemented some of the nation’s most critical food assistance programs, including SNAP, WIC, and school meals. Creating "Access' is the heart of who Stacy is and how she leads.

When Stacy Dean joined Food Secure Nation, the conversation centered on a single but complex word: access. Drawing on a career that spans shaping national nutrition policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, administering SNAP, WIC, school meals, and food bank funding at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and now leading the Global Food Institute at George Washington University, Stacy has influenced food access from nearly every vantage point. Her journey reflects a consistent through-line: leadership is influence, and influence shapes whether access expands or contracts for families across the country and around the globe.

Gerry and Phil sit down with Virginia Witherspoon, the Executive leading Channel One Food Bank in MN. She chairs the National Advisory Committee for Feeding America. Lawery, CEO and Chairperson - 3 Chairs, Unique Perspectives from Virginia Witherspoon.

Our guest, Tory Martin, is a leader at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy, where she helps study and interpret national trends shaping the nonprofit and philanthropic world. Her work looks beyond headlines to examine how trust, technology, and data are reshaping how nonprofits operate and how the public experiences their work.

Melissa Cherney speaks with both candor and inspiration. "We’re not here just to move food. We’re here to fix the system that determines who eats in America. When we design policy, we must remember: behind every application is a human being with dignity, resilience, and a future. Hunger does not define a person. It reflects a moment in time."