Just a Bite

In this special episode of Just a Bite, we celebrate Hunger Action Month with a heartfelt conversation between Joree Novotny, Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, and Julie Chase Moorfield, President and CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio and Board Chair for OAF. Julie reflects on her 25 years in food banking, with a focus on her 20-year tenure at Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio. She shares insights into the significant changes in food banking over the decades, including growth in staff, distribution volume, and expanded community services.

References:  

Learn more about Julie and the incredible work here team is doing here.

Find your local foodbank to find help, volunteer, and donate here.     

Visit our Hunger Action Month Center to learn how you can take action now!

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload every other week!      

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!     

We are licensed to use the song, Goals and Dreams by Boomer, which is distributed and owned by PremiumBeat.    

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.  

This month, Just a Bite host, Sarah Kuhns, sits down with Joy Kostansek and Representative Sean P. Brennan to discuss how to end college hunger in the state of Ohio. As students return to campus this fall, food insecurity and hunger also return to college campuses. College students continuously face high tuition costs, and accumulating student debt, in addition to schedules loaded with heavy course work and on/off campus employment. Far too many college students are struggling to meet their basic needs as they study and learn, with concerning consequences. Joy Kostansek, the Associate Director in the Dean of Students office at the University of Cincinnati (UC), shares more about her work to support UC students in accessing their critical basic needs. State Representative Sean P. Brennan of Ohio’s 14th House District, joins us to discuss not only his passion for addressing food insecurity in our communities, but also his introduction of House Bill 590 to the Ohio General Assembly. Take a listen to this inspiring episode and learn how to fight hunger on college campuses as we enter the 2024-2025 school year.  

References:  

Learn more from our guests, and follow on social media!  

Research, basic needs on college campuses: 

Take Action! Visit the Ohio Association of Foodbanks Hunger Free Campus Action Center to get involved! 

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload them every other week!       

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!      

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.   

Many families rely on school meals during the academic year to provide nutritious and delicious breakfast and lunch. This allows families to use their finite financial resources for other basic needs and gives them some breathing room in their monthly budgets. Unfortunately, every summer these meals are no longer available and many families have to quickly figure out how they are going to make up the difference. Thankfully, there are now options for families to provide meals for their children during the summer! Congress approved an expansion of summer feeding options including Summer EBT and Rural Non-congregate meal sites. These new offerings allow families some flexibility and dignity as they provide for their children during the summer months. Today, we explore these new options on the podcasts with our guests, Jolara O’Harra and Chrissy Musser. Thank you both for sharing your expertise and experiences with the listeners!  

References: 

Learn more about Summer EBT, including eligibility information, outreach materials and important FAQs at https://ohiosummerebt.org/.  

Find both traditional and non-congregate summer meal sites in your area here. Remember that you can utilize both summer meals sites and Summer EBT! 

Learn more about the Community Backyards program and how you can use the program to support your own garden.  

Learn more about Produce Perks and how you can double both SNAP benefits and Summer EBT benefits for your family.  

Find your local foodbank to find help, volunteer, and donate here.      

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload them every other week!       

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!      

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.   

In this episode, Audrey sits down with two incredible experts in the field to celebrate all things Pride. Join us is an hour worth of meaningful conversation concerning the complexities of the LGBTQ+ community, the support they need, and a shout of incredible resources we have right here in Ohio. Joining us is Oliver Licking, Gender Equity Policy Manager at Equitas Health, a non-profit community health center and one of the largest LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS serving healthcare organizations in the country, serving patients in Ohio, Texas, Kentucky and West Virginia. And Erin Upchurch, Executive Director at Kaleidoscope youth center, the largest nonprofit in Ohio dedicated solely to serving and supporting LGBTQ youth.  

References: 

Check out the Feeding America podcast, Elevating Voices, Ending Hunger here, as well as the Williams Institute research referenced.  

You can also find the book, Untamed by Glennon Doyle, referenced by Erin. 

Find your local foodbank to find help, volunteer, and donate here.      

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload them every other week!       

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!      

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.   

With this year’s tax season ending, our Just a Bite host, Sarah, interviewed two experts to discuss the need for an equitable tax code and progressive revenue in Ohio and to highlight the important solutions to make that happen.  

Sarah first talks with Bailey Williams, a tax researcher from Policy Matters Ohio, who answers questions like, why are taxes and revenue so important? What targeted tax relief can we establish for families? And why is eliminating the state income tax such a harmful policy for Ohioans with low and moderate incomes? 

After speaking with Bailey, Sarah talks with Benisha Wright, an advocate and directly impacted Ohioan who talks about what the child tax credit in 2021 meant for her family and countless other Ohio families. She shares that since that tax relief has expired and inflation has only continued to grow, she is increasingly concerned about her ability to make ends meet. We also explore the benefit cliff that she and so many others have experienced as they grow in their careers and earn raises for their hard work, the difficult catch-22 that they are put in to balance their new income and expenses without the support of benefit programs. 

If you would like to take action to push our elected officials to take up equitable tax policies, please share your Child Tax Credit story with us through this form. You can also call on your U.S. Senators to pass a bipartisan child tax credit here. 

References: 

Listen to the press conference for the introduction of the Thriving Families Tax Credit, with Benisha’s remarks starting at 4:29 mark.  

See the media coverage from the press conference and coverage highlighting the Thriving Families Tax Credit: 

See the various research papers done by Policy Matters Ohio making the case for an equitable tax code in Ohio: 

Find your local foodbank to find help, volunteer, and donate here.      

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload them every other week!       

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!      

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.   

In this episode, Audrey sits down to talk about a wide variety of topics concerning women’s health, livelihood, and the changes still to be made as we celebrate Women’s History Month. Our expert for this episode is the incredible Elizabeth Brown who currently serves at the President and CEO for the YWCA of Columbus, Ohio, a nonprofit organization whose mission to eliminate racism, empower women, and promote peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all. Elizabeth previous served as council member for the city of Columbus for seven years where her work included broadening access to opportunity and strengthening women and families. We encourage you to read Liz’s full bio here to learn more about all the incredible work she has done.  

Thank you, Liz, for joining us and for shining light on such meaningful topics. We’d also like to thank Hope at OAF who previously worked with Liz and can be heard throughout the podcast, participating in the conversation with us!  

References: 

Check out Liz full bio from her time as a council member and about the work she is currently doing at the YWCA Columbus, Ohio.  

Call to action for the YWCA, here.  

Learn more about period poverty from leaders in the field like, Aunt Flo, here.  

Although we do not believe the Free the Tampon website has been active since 2020, we still wanted to share as it was a cool part of Liz’s story!   

Learn more about the maternal health crisis and how critical nutrition programs, like WIC, can help on our 2022 episode “Let’s Talk Maternal Health for Mother’s Day”. 

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Find your local foodbank to find help, volunteer, and donate here.      

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload them every other week!       

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!      

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.   

This Black History Month, Just a Bite hosts, Hope Lane-Gavin and Chloe Meyers, interview our great partners through the Ohio CAN program. Our hosts and our friends from the Regenerative Farmer Collective talked about the dichotomy of farming: how painful yet healing it can be as Black farmers to continue to work among the earth and grow as their ancestors did. They shared stories about how the joys and challenges as Black farmers, how they mentor and support one another, and what more needs to be done to rectify the horrific wrongs that white Americans and Europeans did when they kidnapped the first Africans and brought them to Virginia as slaves in 1619. We still see the lasting impact slavery has had on Black Americans to this day. Take a listen to this emotional, powerful conversation as we celebrate this Black History Month.  

References: 

Learn more from our guests and support their farms: 

Learn more about Ohio CAN and other farmers Ohio foodbanks partner with in our previous episode “Getting to know some Ohio Farmers through LFPA”.  

Find your local foodbank to find help, volunteer, and donate here.      

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload them every other week!       

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!      

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.   

Food assistance programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) play a pivotal role as the primary line of defense against food insecurity for numerous individuals. However, gaining access to SNAP benefits and related programs poses challenges not only for everyday Americans and Ohioans but also for those currently incarcerated. In Ohio, individuals within the correctional facilities preparing for release within 30 days can benefit from SNAP INreach, a program facilitated by Ohio's foodbank network. Holding the SNAP outreach contract for nearly 15 years, Ohio's foodbank network strives to extend support. Presently, eight out of our twelve network foodbanks are actively engaged, with four of them consistently conducting monthly corrections-in-reach. As of this recording, Ohio has 28 state-run corrections facilities, with SNAP outreach workers going into 25 of 28 facilities once per month to assist interested inmates to be released within 30 days with their SNAP applications if they so choose. Our network goal in 2024 is to have presence in all 28 state-run corrections facilities. To explore and talk about this critical work for post release success, your Just a Bite hosts have a conversation with our dedicated colleagues, Bailey Clearly-Foeller with Mid-Ohio Food Collective and Robert Zohfeld with Shared Harvest Foodbank who are doing this critical work every day. 

References: 

For more information on SNAP and the impact it has on Ohioans, check out our previous episodes titled, SNAP Outreach: Thoughts from the Field and our more recent episode titled, Ohioans on SNAP Share Their Stories. 

To hear more on the impact of incarcerations, check out our episode titled, Re-entry after incarceration where we hear directly from an impacted Ohioan who is now a wonderful colleague of ours, Mary Evans with the Foodbank, Inc in Dayton, Ohio. This particular episode focuses on the “-isms” that play a major part in stability including food security and recidivism rates.  

For those who are formerly incarcerated, Mary shared a resource that helps connect, lift up, and consult fellow system-impacted individuals, From Prison Cells to PhD.  

Find your local foodbank to find help, volunteer, and donate here.      

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload them every other week!       

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!      

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.   

In this episode, Sarah talks with two amazing partners the Ohio Association of Foodbanks works with through the Ohio Community + Agriculture + Nutrition (CAN) Program, funded through the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program. Jamie Pritchard joins us from WIT Farm and Walt Bonham joins from the Food Lab and the Richland Gro-Op. We talk about the importance of local food systems, the historical context that makes it difficult for BIPOC farmers and other farmers left out of USDA programs to scale and grow, and how local farms are innovatively collaborating with one another to expand their reach and impact.  

Thank you, Walt and Jamie, for joining us and thank you to Carrie at OAF and Ainsley at Ohio Department of Agriculture for listening in and participating in the conversation with us!  

References: 

Check out Jamie’s family-owned business, WIT Farm at their website, on Instagram and Facebook.  

Check out Walt’s business, The Food Lab, and the Richland Gro-Op. You can find the Richland Gro-Op on Instagram and Facebook and the Food Lab on Facebook. 

Visit Walt and other farmers at the North End Community Improvement Collaborative (NECIC) farm and volunteer with them! 

For the farmers listening, here is the podcast Jamie mentioned, My Digital Farmer Podcast, by Corinna Bench from Shared Legacy Farms. You can also check out Corrin’s Farm Marketing School here. 
 

Listen to our previous episode on Ohio CAN with representatives from Ohio Department of Agriculture. 

Learn more about the Ohio CAN program here.  

Find your local foodbank to find help, volunteer, and donate here.      

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload them every other week!       

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!      

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.   

Food insecurity doesn’t stand alone and is simply a symptom of one or more -isms: racism, sexism, classism, ableism, ageism, capitalism. What you may not know, however, is that other symptoms of these -isms include un-or-underemployment, lack of affordable housing, poor health, and crime. Violence and crime are disproportionately higher in areas and communities with poor public education, lack of community investment and economic opportunity. Additionally, these communities are often over policed, poverty stricken and traumatized and crime is often committed to ensure necessities are met or so that the pain is eased. Incarceration is rarely the answer for those who just need opportunity. Incarceration does not alleviate the systemic challenges individuals faced prior to incarceration; in fact, it fuels it by perpetuating disparities. To explore and talk about this vast, nuanced, and interconnected problem, your Just a Bite hosts have a conversation with Professor Karen Benton at Clark State College to talk about the context and connection between access to basic needs and recidivism rates, why food and other basic needs are so critical once someone is released, and what innovative programs are available in Ohio to support system-impacted individuals as they are release. After talking with Karen, you will hear us speak with Mary Evans, Re-entry Manager at the Foodbank, Inc in Dayton and returning citizen herself to talk about her experience being system-impacted and to share her expertise when it comes to supporting folks post-release.   

References: 

Check out Re-Entry Stories and West Dayton Stories produced by Mary Evans at WYSO.  

Mary is also the co-founder of The Journalism Lab, a collaborative that empowers citizen correspondents to learn the foundations of journalism and report on what is happening in their local communities.  

“It’s my mission to give my community a voice” by Mary Evans, in Dayton Daily News.  

For those who are formerly incarcerated, Mary shared a resource that helps connect, lift up, and consult fellow system-impacted individuals, From Prison Cells to PhD.  

Find your local foodbank to find help, volunteer, and donate here.      

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave a review and subscribe to get episodes in your podcast feed as soon as we upload them every other week!       

Want more updates? Follow us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, and take our latest hunger-fighting actions!      

Ohio Association of Foodbanks is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization without party affiliation or bias. We are Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and our mission is to assist Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks in providing food and other resources to people in need and to pursue areas of common interest for the benefit of people in need.