tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79617984864351746892024-03-13T19:39:32.441-07:00Mellow Milan's MusingsA combination of life vignettes, photos, poems, short stories, and wisdom (hopefully) from more than seven decades of living. These are offered for family and friends and anyone else who may happen to be interested.Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.comBlogger199125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-9864781208073214362016-11-22T13:22:00.001-08:002016-11-22T13:22:38.928-08:00Journey of Awakening 62: The Technology of Participation<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">The
Technology of Participation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I remember
when classroom technology consisted of blackboards, chalk, pencils and notebooks.
Learning meant being able to transfer what the teacher would write with chalk on
the blackboard into your notebook with your pencil, whether it happened to pass
through your brain or not. My first memories are of blackboards, white chalk,
and erasers which you took outside and clapped together to clean them at the
end of class. Improvements in this technology were experimented with through
the years, such as yellow chalk and green boards. Multi-colored chalk came
along later, but was generally reserved for special occasions or projects, or
only for the use of skilled teachers. Whiteboards with erasable markers were part
of the evolution as well, as were flip charts and magic markers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">These are
the tools we had to work with in the early days of facilitating groups for
effective decision-making and action. Most group process in the 1960s and 1970s
consisted of brainstorming lots of ideas and writing them all down on black or
white boards or flip chart paper and then trying to get a group of people to
intuitively bring the ideas into some sort of order. Most meetings called
together to arrive at a consensus on decisions or actions ended up lost in the
massive amount of data they had generated, often running out of time to process
the ideas or decide what should be done with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It was
Linda’s and my years on the staff of the ICA that exposed us to and gave us the
tools and training that allowed us to found the FOOD FOR ALL nonprofit and
later to start our home-based business <i>Participation
Works</i>. When ICA took on the bicentennial <i>Town Meeting ’76 </i>project to conduct five thousand local community
meetings across the United States, our staff and volunteers literally had to
invent ways to facilitate large and small groups of citizens to articulate a
vision for their communities and then determine proposals for action. It was in
this crucible of working in communities that the <i>Technology of Participation (</i>ToP<i>)
</i>was born and<i> </i>evolved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">We began our
business using the same tools we had known all our lives: chalk boards, flip
charts, markers, masking tape. Then we added a little creativity, imagination,
and trust in the wisdom of regular people. And, the willingness to experiment
with group methods enabling people to arrive at consensus and take action for
the common good. I guess I would say we used the tools at hand and discovered
they could be adapted in creative ways that allowed us to see that there truly
is a ‘technology of participation.’ These methods have been refined and re-refined
over the last thirty-plus years and are now taught all over the world. They
have even been trade-marked as <i>Technology
of Participation (</i>ToP<i>). </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-21nDpMnEVD8/WDNVZfBFhAI/AAAAAAABkK4/d8mY5sMPqxYoCvXxdao8wkglriLEWXZCgCLcB/s1600/LindaMilan.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-21nDpMnEVD8/WDNVZfBFhAI/AAAAAAABkK4/d8mY5sMPqxYoCvXxdao8wkglriLEWXZCgCLcB/s400/LindaMilan.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Probably
the most innovative technological invention used by ToP trainers and
facilitators is what came to be known as “the sticky wall.” This is a large 3-foot
high sheet of rip-stop (sometimes called parachute) fabric mounted on a flat
wall and sprayed with 3M spray mount (the same adhesive used on post-it notes).
What this material makes possible is that any size piece of paper can be slapped
up on it without tape and it ‘sticks.’ Hence the name “sticky wall.” Invariable
people who attended one of our sessions for the first time would ask with
puzzled looks on their faces: “What is that material and how does it work?” I
often told them “it is a magic wall and you are welcome to come up and examine
it.” We even found that when a fabric sticky wall was not available, we could
pick up cheap plastic table cloths, spray them, and just throw them away after
a meeting.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yHxHHWx5kQs/WDNZqaGVpcI/AAAAAAABkLk/_kzo3BtwOwwfy-GwIKx3E8dnEDnf6-bGQCLcB/s1600/New%2BImage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yHxHHWx5kQs/WDNZqaGVpcI/AAAAAAABkLk/_kzo3BtwOwwfy-GwIKx3E8dnEDnf6-bGQCLcB/s640/New%2BImage.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Linda and
I owe much to our colleagues in the <i>Institute
of Cultural Affairs</i> and the <i>ToP
Trainers Network. </i>I will not try to describe here the extensive work of the
ICA around the world, or the methods used by ToP trainers. If you are interested,
you can go to the ICA US website (<a href="http://www.ica-usa.org/)">http://www.ica-usa.org/)</a> or to ICA International (<a href="http://www.icainternational.org%29/">www.icainternational.org)</a> to learn more about these methods
and unique groups and individuals, all of whom firmly believe that indeed ‘participation
works.’Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-56952025079300917452016-11-21T10:34:00.001-08:002016-11-22T13:20:16.636-08:00Journey of Awakening 61: Participation Works--Really!<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Participation
Works – Really!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A lifetime
of service. That was the story that guided my life through all of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century. Working as a pastor and teacher, civil rights activist, peace
protester, community-builder, non-profit executive. Now in my early sixties, in
good health, employability in question but not ready for retirement, Linda and
I assessed our combined experience and acquired skills. We decided to put
together a home-based business that could be a source of self-support and
provide needed services to organizations committed to the same causes that had
caught our passion for making a difference in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Our years
of work with the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) provided us with training
and field experience in methods for social change and community development.
Thirteen years running a nonprofit anti-hunger organization gave us lots of
hands-on and close-up experience with organizational growth and development.
After spending a couple of years exploring possibilities, we decided to go full
time. We adopted the name <i>Participation
Works</i> for our new venture, and decided to operate as a sole proprietorship,
with Linda as owner and me as her one employee. This seemed only fair, since I
got to be chief executive of FOOD FOR ALL for more than a decade, with Linda
reporting to me. Besides, she was more skilled as a facilitator and trainer than
I was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">We wrote a
business plan and created a simple logo for our business cards, stationary and
marketing materials. </span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nNfEmpWGT3M/WDM9uObCPYI/AAAAAAABkJE/DOtEXm1jj8Mh7gTb38fJYak6rbIoxkFcwCLcB/s1600/PW%2Bbus%2Bcard%2Bimage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nNfEmpWGT3M/WDM9uObCPYI/AAAAAAABkJE/DOtEXm1jj8Mh7gTb38fJYak6rbIoxkFcwCLcB/s320/PW%2Bbus%2Bcard%2Bimage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Relying on referrals from friends and acquaintances who
knew our work, we began to get a few jobs. We also continued our connection to
the ICA and their network of training courses known as Technology of
Participation (ToP). We conducted two-day courses in group facilitation methods
and strategic planning, offered a couple of times a year in the Southern
California region. This helped us develop a network of contacts, since most of
the course participants were executives and volunteers with nonprofit service
organizations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">With some
skill and a bit of luck, calls for our services began to grow. This was
assisted somewhat by the shift in leadership philosophy that was beginning to take
hold in many nonprofit organizations, from a “top-down” to a more collaborative
and participative style. Hence, our name <i>Participation
Works</i> was not only good branding but an accurate description of an
effective approach. Organizations that really put to work the methods we were
teaching them found that they were getting their work done with a lot less time
wasted and energy spent trying to arrive at decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Our approach
was simple. Neither Linda nor I were ever interested in or good at marketing
ourselves. When we began our business the Internet and social marketing were
just being born. We had to depend on word-of-mouth networking and referrals
from anyone who knew us and our work. We were fortunate that there were not
many skilled facilitators in the Inland Empire, our targeted geography. There
were consultants of all kinds, but the field of facilitation was still
relatively in its infancy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I will
attempt to describe the difference between a consultant and a facilitator: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A
consultant usually has some expertise in a particular area, such as finance,
fundraising, organizational development, and gathers information from people
within and outside an organization, then writes up recommendations or a
complete plan for the group to execute; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A
facilitator brings only skills in group process and uses them to bring together
all elements within the organization, helping them to achieve a consensus by
drawing on the knowledge and experience within the organization itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This means
that the usual result of a planning process that is facilitated is a plan where
there is buy-in from all levels of an organization and where group members express
“We created the plan ourselves.” Plans written up by consultants often are much
more expensive and reside on a bookshelf in an office, gathering dust.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The <i>Participation Works</i> approach was, after
receiving a call expressing interest in our services, Linda would pre-qualify a
potential client on the phone by asking questions aimed at learning about the
organization and what experience they had already had with strategic planning.
The next step was a two-hour meeting with a representative group from the
organization, in order to clarify for them how we work and design a
one-and-a-half to two-day planning retreat. Often potential clients were
skeptical that they could produce a real three to five-year plan that could
actually be implemented. We assured them it was possible. In our first few
years we were giving these assurances with less confidence than after getting
feedback from clients who found that these methods worked in their
organizations. Several called us back for second and third strategic planning
retreats as they found that board and staff changes, as well as changes in
their environments, required responsiveness and new directions on their part. A
number of clients began to ask us for help in implementing their plans, so we
developed quarterly and annual reviews that allowed them to keep their plans
ever-fresh and current. A few nonprofits began sending their staff and board
members to our group facilitation methods courses and adopting our planning
methods throughout their organizations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">For the
first couple of years of the first decade of the 21<sup>st</sup> century we
combined five nonprofit clients with six ICA training courses. Most of these
were two-day gigs with organizations varying in size from small all-volunteer
groups to well-established nonprofits with staff and enough in their budgets to
pay us our modest fee. Participation Works gained its reputation for doing good
work for a reasonable price. Sometimes we were so reasonable that we were lucky
to cover our gas and materials expenses, but always for a good cause: Some
struggling nonprofit group needing to determine a new direction or re-energize
itself to better serve its clientele.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Fortunately,
for our own self-support needs, I turned 65 in 2002 and began collecting Social
Security income and automatically received Medicare. One good selling point
became that our clients got two for the price of one. We had found our niche
and continued to work within it through the rest of the decade, averaging ten
to fifteen new and repeat clients per year, along with conducting the three to
four Technology of Participation (ToP) training courses each year. Clients
ranged from small to large, startups to long-established, many different fields
of service, domestic abuse prevention, animal shelters, hospitals, foundations,
radio stations, a few small cities, and some county government agencies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I made
several feeble attempts at retiring during the decade, even declaring when I
reached my 70<sup>th</sup> birthday that I was leaving Participation Works and
Linda should find another facilitator to work with. But there always seemed to be
another client that desperately needed help, and somehow Linda would convince
me I was indispensable. I must admit I was always motivated by feeling needed,
and the ‘life of service’ mantra I had always tried to live by kept playing in
the back of my mind. I think I fully retired when I was somewhere in my early
seventies. I’m not sure because since Linda retired a couple of years ago, she
keeps selectively volunteering with groups that fit with the causes we believe
in, and I keep agreeing to help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">And so it
goes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-55264548677062973512016-01-21T14:24:00.000-08:002016-01-21T14:24:25.949-08:00Adventures of Obama #9<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Adventures of Obama – 9<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Obama’s
final State of the Union<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Given
in Congress – aka the Looney Bin<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Biden
behind him with a wistful look<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Ryan
beside – not a smile would he brook<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Marco
was there, missing his buds<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Donald
and Ted who were out slinging muds<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Barack
Obama without hesitation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Laid
out a vision for our great nation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">In
spite of a Congress in paralysis far too long<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Our
President made his case – “Our Union is Strong!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> Milan
Hamilton<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> January 15,
2016<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">(Again
with a nod to Ogden Nash: <i>Adventures of Isabel</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Isabel met an enormous bear,<br />
Isabel, Isabel, didn't care;<br />
The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,<br />
The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous.<br />
The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,<br />
How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you!<br />
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry.<br />
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.<br />
She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,<br />
Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.<br />
Once in a night as black as pitch<br />
Isabel met a wicked old witch.<br />
the witch's face was cross and wrinkled,<br />
The witch's gums with teeth were sprinkled.<br />
Ho, ho, Isabel! the old witch crowed,<br />
I'll turn you into an ugly toad!<br />
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,<br />
Isabel didn't scream or scurry,<br />
She showed no rage and she showed no rancor,<br />
But she turned the witch into milk and drank her.<br />
Isabel met a hideous giant,<br />
Isabel continued self reliant.<br />
The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid,<br />
He had one eye in the middle of his forhead.<br />
Good morning, Isabel, the giant said,<br />
I'll grind your bones to make my bread.<br />
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,<br />
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.<br />
She nibled the zwieback that she always fed off,<br />
And when it was gone, she cut the giant's head off.<br />
Isabel met a troublesome doctor,<br />
He punched and he poked till he really shocked her.<br />
The doctor's talk was of coughs and chills<br />
And the doctor's satchel bulged with pills.<br />
The doctor said unto Isabel,<br />
)Swallow this, it will make you well.<br />
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,<br />
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.<br />
She took those pills from the pill concocter,<br />
And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 10.8pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (Other
<i>Adventures of Obama</i> parodies may be
found at www.mellowmilan.blogspot.com)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-63849721218567677552015-12-12T12:03:00.000-08:002015-12-12T12:03:45.669-08:00Journey of Awakening 60: Yes! In My Front Yard!<img height="16" id="r44pg0j6qfu9" src="data:image/gif;base64,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" width="16" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It was surreal!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
Wednesday started out like most Wednesdays. Walking to the coffee shop. Trying
to write. Walking back home. Turning on CNN just to see if there is any
“breaking news” really breaking. The scene looks familiar. Are they talking
about something happening in San Bernardino? That building on the screen looks
familiar. Did they say “Waterman”? “Inland Regional Center”? Slowly it sinks
in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A mass shooting has just happened at
a facility, in a conference room Linda had facilitated in several times, with
people from many agencies of San Bernardino County, one where I had been at
least a couple of times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then Linda arrived home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She had already heard while having coffee with a friend at Olive Avenue
Market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We continued to watch the TV
with minds suspended in dis-belief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Fourteen people dead, nineteen wounded, the shooters still on the
loose.” It was still a little after Noon when we heard about a gun battle
between police and inhabitants of a black SUV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Two people shot dead. Possibility of a shooter still on the loose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We decided to keep our regular 2 p.m. workout
time at Anytime Fitness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had an
appointment for my first of five sessions with a personal trainer. We continued
the conversation about what was happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everyone at the gym was also on the same topic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My new personal trainer felt it important to
make a comment, not sure why she thought I needed to hear it: “It’s not the gun
– it’s the person.” I just let that slide without a comeback like “Well, maybe
it’s the person with the gun.” I just didn’t feel like responding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still don’t. But I am sure I will.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By the time we arrived back at our apartment we noticed
there was an unusual amount of activity on our block. Police cars were
gathering at the curve on Center Street in front of our place. We had planned
our usual Gang Happy Hour at our friend Tomi’s who lives in the Townhome
complex on the next street over. As we left for our usual walk across the
property on the other side of the street we were stopped by a loud shout from a
policemen who let us know we were not to go in that direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we noticed that there were a number of
very large SWAT type vehicles parked across the street about two buildings to
the south of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One was parked, not in
the street, but right on the grass in front of 53 North Center (we live at 80
North Center).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We decided to go to our
carport and drive to Tomi’s house. We barely made it before the streets were
all blocked and cordoned off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As we sat in front of Tomi’s TV we began to piece together the
story that the house at 53 North Center was where the shooters may have lived.
Today it was confirmed. We learned recently that there was a virtual arsenal of
weapons and bomb apparatus in the two story home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow we made it back to our apartment last
night, after a circuitous route and parking our car two blocks away, then
talking a police officer into allowing us to walk in to the restricted area to
get home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By this morning we awoke to a media circus just outside our
front yard. Every news outlet had multiple trucks, SUVs and cars, huge
satellite dishes, video cameras and microphones everywhere. The experience of
watching on TV and looking out our front and back windows at the same scenes
was also surreal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Linda and I have often remarked as we watch tragedy after
tragedy going on in our world how fortunate we feel for living in a small
community like Redlands, feeling so safe and secure, while so many people are
suffering, those living in refugee camps, those displaced by war, those dying
of preventable diseases and starvation. We still do feel very lucky to be
alive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But I hope we never take our lives for granted. They can end
in a heartbeat, in the flash from the barrel of an assault rifle or an
automatic handgun, as the families of the fourteen who died and the nineteen
who narrowly escaped death yesterday, at a workplace Holiday celebration, well
know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>Milan
Hamilton<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>December
3, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-46630737536013849332015-11-23T13:31:00.000-08:002015-12-03T14:34:41.247-08:00Journey of Awakening 59: How to Define a Decade<div class="MsoNormal">
If nothing else had happened I might have named the first
ten years of the 21<sup>st</sup> century “The Decade of Broadening
Experiences.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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For our 25<sup>th</sup> anniversary Linda and I planned and
took a two-week trip to Italy. It was a
magical journey: Rome, the Colloseum and
Sistine Chapel; the Italian Riviera, aka Cinque Terre (five lands); walking the
back streets of Venice at night; getting lost in Florence looking for the David
and Michelangelo’s home; Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, where we experienced a
most precarious bus ride; and finally Pompeii, where we were reminded of the
fragility of life and wondered what all those people were doing and thinking on
their last day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sO0BRhSUo70/VlOE-DQx3dI/AAAAAAABPus/9R06gY9qGHM/s1600/Italy%2BTrip%2B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sO0BRhSUo70/VlOE-DQx3dI/AAAAAAABPus/9R06gY9qGHM/s640/Italy%2BTrip%2B.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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We were jazzed after that trip and began thinking of other
places we wanted to experience. This
could be a decade of exposure to the cultures of the world. Then 9/11 happened! Afghanistan invaded! Two years later Iraq! Would this now become a decade defined by
wars and terrorism and counter-terrorism?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HaSuv53qHzI/VlOFS80rKoI/AAAAAAABPu0/EgxYgELrTEE/s1600/Twin%2BTowers%2B911.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HaSuv53qHzI/VlOFS80rKoI/AAAAAAABPu0/EgxYgELrTEE/s640/Twin%2BTowers%2B911.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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There are events that intrude into the ongoingness of our
lives and our planning for wonderful futures that alter our perceptions about
life itself. I guess the “Decade of
Broadening Experiences” is good enough for a descriptive title for this era
after all. We have always said: “The future is open!”<o:p></o:p></div>
Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-80470042566011064902015-10-08T15:01:00.001-07:002015-10-08T15:01:29.331-07:00Journey of Awakening 58: Is There Life After . . . ?<p>Spring 1998. Nearly 14 years of devoting ourselves to birthing, nurturing, selling, directing, facilitating, merging, and finally letting go of the phenomenon of FOOD FOR ALL, Inc., we looked at each other and wondered: “What next?”</p> <p>We were too young (I – 61; Linda – 55) and too poor to retire. Our “severance” pay package had run out and any savings were in a couple of retirement IRAs. But we needed time to process the reality that we no longer had to keep a rigorous and demanding schedule. We suddenly realized that we had not thought through any plans for our future. So we made a pact that we would take two or three months “off” and each explore what might draw us next. Linda took off (literally) and pieced together several meditation retreats – a Women’s Retreat with Ruth Denison at her Joshua Tree center in the desert; a Zen retreat which was happening at the same center; a ten-day retreat on Mindfulness Meditation in Yucca Valley (that one I managed to attend with her); and several individual ones of her own.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-dgtJnSgORe4/VhbnlL6bA_I/AAAAAAABPc0/W9iLma7jSeo/s1600-h/Spirit%252520Rock%252520Retreatrev%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Spirit Rock Retreatrev" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Spirit Rock Retreatrev" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gGPiq46DEYI/VhbnmB-1T-I/AAAAAAABPc4/EcJ5ITIIJgE/Spirit%252520Rock%252520Retreatrev_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="406" height="290" /></a></p> <p>I, meanwhile, dabbled in several pursuits, trying to find my creative side: a watercolor class, a computer class on Microsoft Word (I had managed to escape the computer revolution due to having a secretary for all those FOOD FOR ALL years), eight weeks of Spanish (classes all through the Redlands Adult School).</p> <p>At the beginning of the summer, after spending enough time exploring, the Hamiltons came together for several weeks of “family workshops,” attempting to articulate our family’s values and a vision for where we anticipated life might take us next. We were clear that addressing important issues such as peace and justice, poverty, the environment, would continue to underlie whatever we were doing to sustain ourselves. As for our own living situation, we were committed to “living simply, that others might simply live,” a slogan we adopted from the Simplicity Movement which was gaining momentum during the 90s. Later we would even offer to conduct a series of one-day workshops, called Lifestyle Simplification Labs, which we adapted from what some of our colleagues, Nelson and Elaine Stover, had created on the east coast.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VY2BfSX7-TM/Vhbnm9zmD3I/AAAAAAABPdE/7PXxYAR1zvM/s1600-h/Simple%252520Living%252520Article_stitch%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img title="Simple Living Article_stitch" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Simple Living Article_stitch" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xnU2GYZaIB4/Vhbnn0EwliI/AAAAAAABPdM/GjCz-o1Y1cg/Simple%252520Living%252520Article_stitch_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="1084" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PAqfesCxABk/VhbnowFIdNI/AAAAAAABPdU/1xdPe09u7vo/s1600-h/First%252520LSL2%252520%2525283%252529_Fotor_Collage%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="First LSL2 (3)_Fotor_Collage" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="First LSL2 (3)_Fotor_Collage" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-qghzWE6-OjM/Vhbnpwn1E5I/AAAAAAABPdc/f4uEtR16tBU/First%252520LSL2%252520%2525283%252529_Fotor_Collage_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="420" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="4">Our First Lifestyle Simplification Lab</font></strong></p> <p>One of the benefits of our years working with struggling nonprofit agencies was we had learned the value of networking. As part of our “right livelihood” career exploration we talked to a lot of people we had met through our work. It might come as no surprise that not many of them were in the food industry. There were times when I would get these strange feelings in the pit of my stomach whenever we had to shop in a supermarket (I have since got over that reaction). The people we approached for guidance and advice were those who were working on the front lines, the nonprofit service agencies. At the same time we began kicking around what it would be like to take our experience with both the Institute of Cultural Affairs and FOOD FOR ALL, and form our own little company to help struggling nonprofit organizations (we had lots of experience there).</p> <p>At the beginning of the summer we were approached by Harriet Pritchard, who founded <b><i>Alternative Gifts International</i></b>, a nonprofit which conducted Holiday Gift Fairs, mostly in churches. Harriet was nearing retirement age and saw us as potential “successors” to carry on after her and grow the organization. Milan took the job of Director of Marketing, commuting to Lucerne Valley, a little town in the high desert, once a week, staying in a make-shift apartment in one of Harriet’s buildings. The organization, it turned out, was not quite ready or us, and we for it. So after one season of Holiday gift fairs, Harriet and I mutually agreed to sever the relationship. I just learned from the current executive of AGI that Harriet died in November 2014. I include the internet address of AGI below in case you are interested in reading about another “social pioneer” and a unique nonprofit that is still in service with which I had a brief connection.</p> <p align="center"><a href="https://www.alternativegifts.org/"><font size="3">https://www.alternativegifts.org/</font></a> </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-eQr20-KWLyo/VhbnrIZ5uAI/AAAAAAABPdk/8yWOTT231l0/s1600-h/Harriet%252520Prichard2%2525281%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Harriet Prichard2(1)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Harriet Prichard2(1)" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bqlPcyJVdQ8/VhbnsGFTxNI/AAAAAAABPds/c4nTe1fvZn4/Harriet%252520Prichard2%2525281%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="326" /></a></p> <p>Meanwhile Linda had made the acquaintance of Linda Dunn, Director of <b><i>Inland Agency</i></b>, which worked with local communities throughout Riverside and San Bernardino counties. IA had just received a grant to work with two small communities, Adelanto and Nuevo. Linda was hired for one year to direct these two projects. The projects were aimed at building local community capacity. After bringing together a wide diversity of people, young and old, holding visioning workshops, identifying local leaders, forming local steering groups, it became clear that the Nuevo community was not right for the project. But Adelanto really came together and began to make great strides. Linda was commuting to the high desert several days a week. Adelanto was a city with great needs, lots of boarded up houses, left after the real estate bust of the 90s, an absence of a supermarket and adequate local services. But the methods Linda was applying were paying off and people began to invest in their own future. An innovative Neighborhood Academy was facilitated by our ICA colleague Raul Jorquera of Phoenix. And a dramatic rehearsal of residents’ aspirations was enacted with the help of another east coast colleague, Bill Grow, founder of <b><i>Swamp Gravy</i></b>. Adelanto became a model of what a local community can do when community members get committed and get some tools to realize their vision.</p> <p>I mentioned earlier that we had the idea to form our own company. Actually, while working with Alternative Gifts International and Inland Agency we wrote a business plan and completed a strategic plan for Participation Works, which we would see grow into a viable self-support vehicle, finally retired from active service just last year. We were not sure exactly what our niche would be. We sent letters to city and county agencies, school districts, and nonprofit executives. We talked to our friends. We offered to do a few “freebies.” We kept busy making contacts but felt like it was going to take a couple years of treading water before we actually had any actual clients.</p> <p>Then right in the middle of Linda’s Adelanto contract, we submitted a proposal to the <b><i>County of San Bernardino</i></b>, which was attempting to integrate all of their Human Service agencies to provide more seamless services to clients. We knew the project, which was to be a year or more to completion, was more than we could handle, so we brought in one of our ToP Trainer colleagues (ToP = Technology of Participation), Jane Stallman, from northern California. Jane had had experience working with large and complex organizations. We were competing with a couple of other consulting firms from outside California. And surprise! We got the contract. The next six to eight months were filled with meetings, meetings, meetings. The County gave us office space in one of their buildings. Jane was commuting from Oakland, spending three days a week with us, rooming at my mother’s place. I was assigned the duty of handling all the contract obligations, invoicing and depositing and writing checks, as well as documenting all of the meetings and planning sessions (my new found skill with Microsoft Word). Weekly meetings with the twelve-plus members of the Leadership Team, comprised of the heads of all the various human service agencies. Monthly meetings, sometimes more often, with the management staff from all these agencies. Endless hours meeting among ourselves to stay ahead of the whole process. The process was kicked off with a two-day complete strategic planning retreat, followed by involving around 200 management and line staff members. In addition to all of these meetings, our team was tasked to provide training in the methods we were using (ICA ToP methods) for the County Training Department staff.</p> <p>To complicate life further, most of the individual members of the Leadership Team, all agency heads who were used to running their own show, managing their own budgets, and maintaining their own little fiefdoms, were resisting the process of bringing them all together into one coordinated system. But they were instructed by the County Administrator and the Head of Human Services, to make this work. That is until, John Michaelson, who hired us, had two heart attacks within a space of a few weeks. He never was able to return to work and retired before the end of the summer. Our champion was gone. We still had the better part of a year to go on our contract. About the middle of August we received a letter from John’s deputy director: “In view of recent developments, we have decided to go in a different direction. Your services will no longer be needed. Thank you for your service.” I called the County finance office to find out about our contract fulfillment. I submitted an invoice for the balance of our contract and received a check for the full amount. You may wonder what ever happened to the County of San Bernardino Human Services Department. It still functions. In its separate fiefdoms. But, a part of the later story is that the Training Department people we trained in participatory methods, have continued to use those methods in helping County departments in their planning, and PERC, as it is known, has continued to send people every year for training in the courses that we have offered. We still encounter people, from time to time, who participated in the process and/or the trainings, and they speak enthusiastically about recalling what was accomplished.</p> <p>It is difficult to believe that all of this could have happened in the first two years after we left the leadership of FOOD FOR ALL. But it seems to have been the launching pad for our little home-based company. <b><i>Participation Works</i></b> was on the way! And we are barely at the end of the twentieth century.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-NG5tjYOF7Oo/VhbntKvVfbI/AAAAAAABPd0/0pmvpW004wA/s1600-h/PW%252520Bus%252520Card%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="PW Bus Card" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="PW Bus Card" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ogUAt-QE8Xw/Vhbnt6jQDwI/AAAAAAABPd8/J08PSSyPJAU/PW%252520Bus%252520Card_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="353" height="226" /></a></p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-1021003813310427382015-05-04T19:01:00.001-07:002015-05-04T22:31:49.459-07:00FOOD FOR ERA 22: “You’re Welcome!”<p>Hunger and malnutrition, homelessness, diseases, poverty, mental illness, human rights, climate change and the environment, child abuse, human trafficking . . .on and on. All big issues in themselves. All still with us.</p> <p>I was involved in the very beginning of a simple idea using a scan-able bar code to make it possible for customers to make charitable donations at supermarket check stands. It had never been done before. Along with our having to figure out all the logistics and systems, we had to demonstrate the potential for funds to be raised simply and easily by supermarkets. Today, thanks to the proliferation of the scanner technology and the computerization of systems to manage money, many billions have been raised for all of the above causes, and more. The system has evolved and expanded into many other venues. And while raising money has not and cannot solve any of them, millions of everyday folk now have the opportunity to add a small donation to their bill as they make a purchase for themselves or their family. This is the legacy of FOOD FOR ALL.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z1ejIHZ1BGA/VUgkbr9sURI/AAAAAAAAG3s/gaw1jd2Nx-A/s1600-h/FFA%252520Kickoff%252520Collage%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA Kickoff Collage" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Kickoff Collage" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T4U_aHWtSf0/VUgkcbnyhhI/AAAAAAAAG3w/LXv5wjQfMSM/FFA%252520Kickoff%252520Collage_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="314" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2">FOOD FOR ALL at Kickoff, first and future donation cards</font></strong></p> <p>When I reflect on the legacy of FOOD FOR ALL, what appears is the image of a jewel that was found buried in a box with a note attached to it saying “This jewel must be given away or it will become a worthless stone.”</p> <p>For several years, when I would encounter an individual with a little table and a “please help” sign at the entrance to a supermarket where we shopped, I would smile and say to myself “I gave at the check stand.” This was because the FOOD FOR ALL program was offered by that retailer, making it easy to just pick up a card and have it scanned and added to my grocery receipt as a tax-deductible donation. I also knew that the donation would be well-managed and that most of it would be applied to finding solutions to end hunger. I knew this because I was one of the founders of FOOD FOR ALL. I knew this because I had helped develop a system to train local people to staff volunteer grant boards, who continually educated themselves and their grantees on addressing root causes of hunger. I knew this because we were from the beginning continually educating ourselves about root causes of hunger and approaches that worked in addressing it. I knew this because the FOOD FOR ALL organization was always about much more than raising money and giving grants.</p> <p>When Linda came up with the idea of a simple display at supermarket checkouts holding a bar-coded card, making it easy to add a donation to stop hunger, only about half of retail stores in the country even had the new scanning capability. It was an added chore for companies to do fundraising promotions. They either had to set up barrels for product donations or cash register coin boxes that were a nightmare for accounting and easy marks for fraud. No one anywhere had done before what FOOD FOR ALL made possible. Today, not only supermarkets but retailers of all kinds can and do offer their customers a chance to add a donation to their purchases, for any number of causes. “Would you like to add a donation to your bill?” followed on the screen by a button to push or a touchscreen image to touch with a “yes” makes it so easy. Some supermarkets still carry the donation cards we designed year-round, with their own logos and promotional materials. More implement a seasonal fundraising appeal using the cards or smaller paper tickets.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-3U2s4a8lLlY/VUgkdBK6oqI/AAAAAAAAG34/zWsCyxBsz-w/s1600-h/Rite%252520Aid%252520Charity%2525201.jpg%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img title="Rite Aid Charity 1.jpg" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Rite Aid Charity 1.jpg" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Rwe6RyF2V6U/VUgkdhQdeDI/AAAAAAAAG4E/GtOkrqBfxtY/Rite%252520Aid%252520Charity%2525201.jpg_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="214" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2">Donation Balloons with bar codes at Rite Aid Drugstores</font></strong></p> <p>Our original FOOD FOR ALL supermarket in our town of Redlands, California, Gerrards Cypress Center, displays donation cards of $1, $5, and $10 with proceeds going to Redlands Family Service. Stater Bros. Markets created their own nonprofit in 2008, Stater Bros. Charities. The company has continued the year-round program using the same display racks we launched their stores with in 1990, but with their own company information on the $1, $3, and $5 donation cards. Stater Bros. Charities support a variety of local nonprofit agencies, but we still hear occasionally from some of the anti-hunger organizations we funded who are receiving grants. I’ve heard of a few other supermarket chains who have kept the year-round approach going, but I can’t call any by name at the moment.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YC0KN-I43a4/VUgkeM9KYJI/AAAAAAAAG4M/tL4AtgN9aFw/s1600-h/Gerrard%252520Stater%252520Bros%252520Collage%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Gerrard Stater Bros Collage" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Gerrard Stater Bros Collage" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-axPCaQtIkgw/VUgke1dEzxI/AAAAAAAAG4U/rx8ZJwf4Oq8/Gerrard%252520Stater%252520Bros%252520Collage_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="316" /></a></p> <p align="center"><font size="2">Top: Gerrards Cypress Center; Bottom: Stater Bros. Markets</font></p> <p>FOOD FOR ALL was the first to develop a program that could be replicated in any retail supermarket: “A simple way of giving to help end hunger; just add a scan-able donation card to your grocery purchases every time you shop.”</p> <p>We were also first in other ways. The food security movement was originally a concept that grew up in the late 1980s. It grew out of the awareness of many anti-hunger activists that what was needed was local community access to affordable, safe, nutritious food. This encompassed support for community gardens, community supported agriculture (e.g., farmers markets), encouraging supermarket operators to enter under-served areas, lobbying for better food policies at the local and state levels. FOOD FOR ALL was one of the first funding organizations to provide grants to such projects.</p> <p>It is difficult to measure the impact of another pioneering effort of FOOD FOR ALL, but we were known among grant recipient agencies and anti-hunger activists for bringing together both local and international leaders in the field to work on strategies to make a difference in dealing with the hunger issue. Our early Think Tanks on Hunger and Sharing Approaches that Work conferences were a welcome change for those involved in the day-to-day struggle of trying to make an impact on such a difficult issue.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R5bIUTW_YxU/VUhVwWsZTcI/AAAAAAAAG5s/SVfikYUpFCY/s1600-h/FFT%25252089%252520Aug%2525204%252520%2525282%252529%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 89 Aug 4 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 89 Aug 4 (2)" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LsO8MSB5mm4/VUhVwzpV8zI/AAAAAAAAG5w/guEbejBUT6I/FFT%25252089%252520Aug%2525204%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="321" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2">Think Tanks on Hunger—educated us and volunteers on hunger</font></strong></p> <p>FOOD FOR ALL from the beginning had an ambitious and pro-active education component, about hunger, its causes and solutions. We knew that customers and store employees especially, needed to be made aware of the importance of adopting the habit of giving and encouraging other customers and employees as well. In addition, community groups were part of the support system we needed to reach. We created several programs to provide the necessary education: The Store Ambassadors, a customer and/or employee in each store to monitor displays and educate others about FOOD FOR ALL; A speakers bureau, to make a simple presentation to local groups on the “Components of a Productive Life,” showing how the loss of any one of the elements, job, housing, health, transportation, could place anyone at risk. The presentation featured a pyramid of boxes, each box representing one of the essentials, and then the presenter pulled out one box at a time until the entire pyramid collapsed. Regular gatherings of the Local Grant Boards for support and sharing learnings were also an important piece of the support system.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kBa47Y4QRnY/VUgkgTQx0sI/AAAAAAAAG4s/4bVLgSFiAVU/s1600-h/Productive%252520Life%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Productive Life" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Productive Life" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-S-iI73TVu-M/VUgkhBX8ySI/AAAAAAAAG4w/qLrUAGc5nxw/Productive%252520Life_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="412" height="274" /></a></p> <p>An illustration of how FOOD FOR ALL was always pushing the envelope is the way we tried to operate from the big picture and the broadest context possible. Georgianna McBurney, one of our five founding board members, headed up our Funds Distribution Advisory Board for twelve years. Georgianna was a profound and futuristic thinker. One year she came up with a “talk,” which came to be known as “the Gap Talk.” She presented it to one of our meetings in the late 1980s. The gist of it is that we are living in a gap between two ages, the industrial age and the information age. The image that accompanied the talk was a timeline with overlapping half-circles. The first circle, the longest, represents the hunter/gatherer age, which lasted for three million years. The second, the agricultural age, for about ten thousand. The third, the industrial age, and we were just at the end of it after only about three hundred years, when the information age hit us. We do not yet know how to live in it. All of the institutions of society, government, economic, health, education, were built for the industrial age, but with the rapidity of change and the complexity of the information revolution, they are no longer working. The world seems to be crumbling around us. Today, we might even add an additional bit of complexity. We seem to have moved from the information age into what might be termed the “digital age.” This is characterized by virtually all of our human interactions being done digitally. Facebook, You Tube, Google, Twitter, smart phones.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-x6A1VjLbxYg/VUgkhqHghmI/AAAAAAAAG48/7bFv8jI08g8/s1600-h/Georgianna%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Georgianna" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Georgianna" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Acdj2vDG8DU/VUgkiKScu5I/AAAAAAAAG5A/m44G8KOPci8/Georgianna_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="320" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="3">Georgianna McBurney—Our resident futurist</font></strong></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rLfisnctsNA/VUgkish7LWI/AAAAAAAAG5I/V_esHQiwgCc/s1600-h/The%252520Gap%2525202%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="The Gap 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="The Gap 2" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nH3_k9DBT4k/VUgkjFRurUI/AAAAAAAAG5M/qXpVkWBcKd0/The%252520Gap%2525202_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="413" height="241" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="3">Illustration for the “Gap Talk”</font></strong></p> <p>This presentation on the Gap did not give us any better way of deciding how grants should be given, or how agencies could get a handle on the intractable issue of hunger and homelessness. But when people began to understand their situation from a historical perspective, it seemed to provide some relief from the feelings of guilt that accompany any effort to save the world.</p> <p>All of this is part of the legacy of FOOD FOR ALL. I am glad I am part of it. Every time I enter a store and am asked “Would you like to make a donation to . . . ,” I respond with something like “I’m glad you asked. What is my donation for?” Sometimes I respond with a ‘yes’ and sometimes not. We still shop at Stater Bros. Markets every week. Every week I pick up a donation card and add it to the groceries. Sometimes the checker says thank you. Occasionally I mention that my wife and I founded the program they are continuing and ask “How is Jack Brown doing?” When my donation is acknowledged with a ‘thank you,’ I just smile and say “You’re welcome!”</p> <p>I’m happy Linda got me involved with her idea. I’m honored to have met and worked with so many wonderful human beings in the thirteen years I was privileged to lead FOOD FOR ALL, those inside and outside the food industry. I enjoyed reading all the letters of thanks from the many anti-hunger agencies and food industry folk, as well as going through all the press clippings and articles that were written during our tenure.</p> <p>Occasionally, I run into someone in Redlands who still remembers FOOD FOR ALL from those early years, and they ask “Are you and Linda still doing that program for hunger?” Or “Is that FOOD FOR ALL program still going on?” I usually just smile and respond with something like “I’m retired, but I’m sure there are people who are still working hard to help make the world a better place.” </p> <p>I feel good about what we started and what was accomplished during our watch. But in order to keep myself humble I sometimes remind myself that I can take all of those thank-you letters and press clippings with me, along with my AARP card, and walk into almost any McDonald’s and get a cup of coffee for seventy-five cents.</p> <p>You're welcome!</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-74125920746064723902015-04-24T16:24:00.001-07:002015-04-24T17:05:42.463-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 21: What Ever Happened to FOOD FOR ALL?<p>After the farewell party in February 1998, Linda and I decided it was time to step away from involvement in the new FICAH/FOOD FOR ALL organization, take some time to heal from a year of trying unsuccessfully to mesh our grassroots, participatory culture with the new parent organization’s top-down corporate mentality, and explore options for our next phase. It quickly became obvious to us that Michael did not welcome any advice from us, and that the “old” FICAH officers had no interest in continuing the volunteer structures we had spent years developing. We actually heard of a quote from one of them that they were viewing our merger as an acquisition. In other words, a “take-over.” They wanted our name, which they officially adopted for all their consumer programs four years later. After 9-11 the name “crusade” became problematic, although they had already been thinking about the name change.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YTkHPfDwUBA/VTrQuSAIpDI/AAAAAAAAGxA/REtMT8la6UQ/s1600-h/Campbells%252520FFA%2525202.jpeg%252520%2525282%252529%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img title="Campbells FFA 2.jpeg (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Campbells FFA 2.jpeg (2)" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tqL0N9gu8ys/VTrQvA3zZHI/AAAAAAAAGxE/GSD3TDZiEzQ/Campbells%252520FFA%2525202.jpeg%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="250" /></a></p> <p>Michael Donkis was now in charge as CEO. Within a few months the FOOD FOR ALL office was moved from Redlands to a warehouse near the Ontario airport, more convenient for Michael’s commuting from his Melrose Avenue apartment and his flights to the FICAH office in Washington, DC. I have to give Michael some credit. He tried to honor his firm promise that FOOD FOR ALL’s year-round program would continue and hopefully be adopted by more retailers. For the next couple of years it did actually expand on the east coast, largely due to the FOOD FOR ALL staff members Michael kept on to handle the installation and merchandising tasks. But he simply was not able to manage the volunteer grant boards, the store ambassadors, the ongoing education and training involved in sustaining the organization as before the merger. That was neither his expertise nor his interest. I must add that had Linda and I stayed and I worked on my own ego issues as “ex-CEO,” the new organization was in for a rocky few years in any case.</p> <p>Within four years some decisions of Michael’s would put the organization’s capacity to honor international grants at risk. He spent about a quarter of a million dollars on a consulting firm to develop a new financial system for tracking the donations coming from retailers and the grants going out to local agencies, only to abandon the project after two years and return to the system Jenny Foster’s husband, Ev, had set up in our first two years. This resulted in the organization’s board having to delay the allocation of international grants for about a year. I suspect this may have been part of the reason that Michael left about three years after we did. Shortly after this FICAH hired an ex-food industry lobbyist and marketing person, Denis Zegar, as CEO, closed the Ontario office, and let the staff go, except for one former food industry marketing person working out of his home. This left the organization with a total of four staff.</p> <p>The good news is the FOOD FOR ALL program was still appealing to the food industry due to downsizing the organization and the dedication of the volunteer board of directors who hung in there through some rough years. John Benner, formerly chairman of FOOD FOR ALL, as treasurer until 2002, helped get the organization back on track. The other good news is that the retail supermarket operators now became the “deciders” of where the grant funds would go, replacing the small army of local grant boards we had recruited and trained. I say good news because even today we hear about these funds going to many of the local projects we funded early on. FICAH continued to raise money from the food industry to support the international self-help projects; and FOOD FOR ALL grants from the 10,000 supermarkets eventually carrying the year-round and holiday programs continued to support the local anti-hunger agencies.</p> <p>In 2002 I requested an annual report, after hearing virtually nothing from the organization for four years. I received a cordial letter from Tom Moran, Manager of Administrative Services of <u>Food for All: Self-Help Solutions to End Hunger</u>. It was accompanied by an annual report, the first I had seen since we left. I was pleased to see that many of the retail supermarket chains we had approached were now listed as FOOD FOR ALL participants. I was also glad that FOOD FOR ALL was now in 41 states and the District of Columbia, that $2 million annually was now being provided in grants, and that $35 million had been invested in self-help anti-hunger projects in the United Stated and worldwide.</p> <p>My next inquiry into where FOOD FOR ALL had gone since 1998 was in March of 2015, as I was preparing to write this blog entry. Imagine my surprise! FOOD FOR ALL has been renamed ‘Making Change.’ Dennis Zegar, then CEO of FOOD FOR ALL, in 2012, recommended it to the board, after determining that FOOD FOR ALL had grown beyond addressing hunger, and obtained the pro bono services of a global advertising firm, which came up with the new name. Mr. Zegar stated it this way: “We think this new brand identity will enable us to basically explore any program without being tied to food.” The board officially made the change in February 2013.</p> <p>Denis Zegar died as a result of a bicycle racing accident in August 2014. The chairman of the newly named organization stated: “We are working to establish a protocol for the organization moving forward. In the meantime there will be no interruption in the programs we offer to our retail partners.”</p> <p>After learning about the new name and Mr. Zegar’s death, I researched the history of FICAH/FOOD FOR ALL as it is found in about 45 pages of articles in <u>Supermarket News</u>, the primary news publication of the supermarket industry, stretching from August of 1997 to August of 2014. I found myself being proud of what we began back in 1985. I could actually see the vision we had of getting the entire food industry behind the hunger issue had come to fruition, at least in part. It had to come about the way it did, with the industry in charge. But the original mission of supporting self-help solutions and getting at root causes of hunger remained in the hearts and minds of at least some of the industry leaders.</p> <p>By the year 2000, fifteen years from the founding of both FICAH and FOOD FOR ALL, almost all of the $3.5 million was coming from customer donations at check stands. The organization was struggling to get food industry corporations to support its efforts. Our old friend/enemy “mergers and acquisitions” within the industry was still a major factor. The next year, after 9-11, there was a bit of a resurgence of industry support. And by the end of 2004 six thousand supermarkets were participating in either the year-round or seasonal FOOD FOR ALL programs.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--BzjzCsyU_I/VTrQvxDUgLI/AAAAAAAAGxM/jLjkWlNKaMI/s1600-h/FICAH%252520FFA%252520RETAILERS%2525202002%2525201%252520%2525282%252529%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img title="FICAH FFA RETAILERS 2002 1 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FICAH FFA RETAILERS 2002 1 (2)" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kwTOPOsz5vc/VTrQwVs3wWI/AAAAAAAAGxU/vwgRTiw8Xv8/FICAH%252520FFA%252520RETAILERS%2525202002%2525201%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="212" height="238" /></a>  <a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hcDnzej2BME/VTrQw0CAuWI/AAAAAAAAGxg/W0aEKUICW2g/s1600-h/FICAH%252520FFA%252520RETAILERS%2525202002%2525202.jpeg%252520%2525282%252529%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img title="FICAH FFA RETAILERS 2002 2.jpeg (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FICAH FFA RETAILERS 2002 2.jpeg (2)" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R3bjxGavlKI/VTrQx5MK-OI/AAAAAAAAGxo/oDp0O6zzGGo/FICAH%252520FFA%252520RETAILERS%2525202002%2525202.jpeg%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="186" height="238" /></a></p> <p>      <strong><font size="2">The Holiday Program                    The Year-Round Program</font></strong></p> <p>In a special October 2004 edition of <u>Supermarket News</u>, ‘FOOD FOR ALL AT 20,’ Jack Brown of Stater Bros. was interviewed for one of the feature stories. He actually included the story he loved to tell about encountering us in our beat-up old Honda Accord, which convinced him to support FOOD FOR ALL, back in 1990. Again my facts and his story of being the first major chain to participate don’t quite jibe. Also his version of how we came to obtain the UPC bar codes (his was: he got them for us; mine: Bill Christy our board member). At any rate Jack was quoted as saying he was “proud of the Hamiltons and of the late Paul Gerrard who had the courage to start it in his store.” I am reasonably certain none of the readers of his article, including Jack, will be reading my story.</p> <p>Those of us who founded the original FOOD FOR ALL organization and program were variously described in this issue of <u>Supermarket News</u>. We were “community activists,” “dreamers,” “visionaries.” My favorite, I guess, is “a group of visionaries who believed the food industry could make a difference in the lives of people throughout the world.” (My only amendment would be that we believed that every day shoppers could make a difference by making a small donation every time they shopped).</p> <p>Bob Emmons, who was the first chairman of the combined FICAH/FOOD FOR ALL organization in 1997, came close when he was quoted in this issue:</p> <p>Though both groups were formed in 1985, and both sought to support charities that championed self-sufficiency for the less fortunate, FICAH and Food For All prior to their merger had some significant differences. The former was funded primarily through corporate contributions of founding grocery distributor companies and directed its donations largely overseas; the latter raised the majority of its money from consumer contributions at retail stores in support of local charities.</p> <p>Paul Gerrard died in May of 2004. I attended his memorial at First Baptist in Redlands and spoke briefly of our friendship and his support. Jack and Debbie Brown were there as well as a number of California supermarket operators.</p> <p>A <u>Supermarket News</u> article in November 2007 noted that, according to CEO Denis Zegar, FOOD FOR ALL revenues had reached more than $5 million the previous fiscal year. The number of retail participating stores now numbered 8,000. Fifty-three million dollars had been raised for anti-hunger programs since 1985. A January 2013 article, published just before the name change to ‘Making Change,’ reported that the total raised since the founding of FOOD FOR ALL was $73 million. And there were now 10,000 participating retail outlets.</p> <p>So for nearly thirty years, through earthquakes, riots, tsunamis, terrorist attacks, wars, and drastic economic downturns, FOOD FOR ALL has continued to grow and hold at least some of its original vision of addressing the causes as well as the effects of hunger. It even managed to weather the many food industry mergers and consolidations over the years. The unfortunate bi-product of the point-of-purchase program being controlled by the retailers themselves was that the international grants have dwindled to less than $100,000 in total grants each year. And it will have to be seen whether the name change to ‘Making Change’ will carry the organization for another three decades. The latest literature from the organization indicates that it has over the past few years been turned into a marketing program for retailers and suppliers and therefore lost much of its original power.</p> <p>In 1985 an organization was founded because of an idea of a supermarket shopper, who happened to be married to me. In 1986 a supermarket operator took a chance because he looked at her idea and said: “This could end hunger.” In 1987 a marketing VP of a supermarket chain said: “We’ll be happy to participate in your pilot project.” In 1988 another VP of a supermarket chain on the east coast said: “I’ve been waiting for you to call.” In 1989 a VP of a small northern California chain said: “We’ll install your program in our stores.” I don’t remember much after that. So you can rely on all the previous episodes I have written as true or the rantings of a deluded visionary.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Fz4OVdZettc/VTraUZ0VeCI/AAAAAAAAGx4/YkTcu-oaSDU/s1600-h/FFA%252520Office%252520MH%252520%2525282%252529%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA Office MH (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Office MH (2)" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ZzEQ6o8k-Rs/VTraVON_-yI/AAAAAAAAGx8/6PwvSYEkJIc/FFA%252520Office%252520MH%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="222" height="342" /></a>   </p> <p>The next and last chapter of my story will be an attempt to articulate the real legacy of FOOD FOR ALL.</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-37900101582016731632015-04-17T15:50:00.001-07:002015-04-17T15:50:20.836-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 20: Celebrate!<p>Back from India and invited to a party—for us! Our FOOD FOR ALL board and staff planned a celebration to give Linda and me a proper send-off. We showed up at the Pomona Valley Mining Company restaurant where we had held a few of our annual meetings over the past decade. We were surprised and delighted that people representing our entire history with FOOD FOR ALL were there for a dinner and time to remember and honor what was accomplished. People who had supported us from the very beginning: Paul and Dorothy Gerrard, our original grocer; board members John and Linda Benner, Lynda Trelut who flew down from Gilroy, Georgianna McBurney, Helen Anderson, Bill Christy. FOOD FOR ALL and VISTA volunteers, former staff members like Sing Baker who drove up from San Diego to join us.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zWf2KLsQbyI/VTGNu6SWiqI/AAAAAAAAGpo/he1GooSV--4/s1600-h/FFA-Farewell-Dinner1.jpg"><img title="FFA Farewell Dinner" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Farewell Dinner" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YWTsx496jto/VTGNvRL_QfI/AAAAAAAAGpw/YBHemoG6UsM/FFA-Farewell-Dinner_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="222" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--zfsdQpjE3Y/VTGNwCHAtHI/AAAAAAAAGp4/PA_7hheTxoc/s1600-h/FFA-People-21.jpg"><img title="FFA People 2" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA People 2" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-aV1GX9Dl-pk/VTGNwvBq-tI/AAAAAAAAGp8/q6XMqNBNU4I/FFA-People-2_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="223" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2">Paul and Dorothy Gerrard, First FOOD FOR ALL grocer</font></strong></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bXSLn0IFTIQ/VTGNxCwSbLI/AAAAAAAAGqI/i1UGA-0VK3U/s1600-h/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL-14.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL 1" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL 1" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-JOGYZXWvN-A/VTGNyJrU44I/AAAAAAAAGqM/HwQf4VyTDLI/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL-1_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="265" /></a></font></strong></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2">L-R top; L-R bottom: Georgianna, Bill, Helen, Lynda, John</font></strong></p> <p>Michael Donkis, our new CEO, was not there, nor were any of our newly acquired FICAH board members. We did not expect them to be. This was obviously a party to bring a proper ending to what FOOD FOR ALL was and not so much a looking forward to what it was to become. It was entirely appropriate and just fine with us. We had always been an organization that celebrated, both the victories and the set-backs. So we enjoyed the chance to say farewell and listen to all the nice things people had to say about us and say, Thank you!”</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0jvKXf8Tj40/VTGNyuhb2OI/AAAAAAAAGqY/Vs7G31N-hTo/s1600-h/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL24.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL2" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL2" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-cdnt1wtf6_w/VTGNzrY7L4I/AAAAAAAAGqc/W-9lxRq0RW4/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL2_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="265" /></a></p> <p>It was most heartwarming to receive this massive twelve-and-a-half pound album of letters (I weighed it) from the hundreds of nonprofit organizations across the country and world, and people who could not be present for the send-off party, but who wrote letters of appreciation.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UA-G3I1-vmU/VTGN0FTpC_I/AAAAAAAAGqo/8wyVcmQDClE/s1600-h/FFA-Reflection-41.jpg"><img title="FFA Reflection 4" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Reflection 4" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-GuOINhyeSbA/VTGN0mHtr8I/AAAAAAAAGqs/3sL5r5hoiZQ/FFA-Reflection-4_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="413" height="241" /></a></p> <p>A wall representing the history of FOOD FOR ALL was put up and our board officers, Georgianna McBurney, Lynda Trelut, Helen Anderson, and John Benner led the whole gathering to reflect together on the achievements of the past decade plus. We built FOOD FOR ALL as a “learning organization” so it was important to be sure people had the chance to say what important lessons could be passed on to those who would carry the banner into the future.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-vLy5Lc3_xkE/VTGN1P8ge7I/AAAAAAAAGq4/Mx2qy1G2eq8/s1600-h/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL34.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL3" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL3" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kn5gmdX3X-I/VTGN1yU1tuI/AAAAAAAAGq8/HJ_x-y43wbs/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL3_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="263" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MeimEaxnFDU/VTGN2Rr5n4I/AAAAAAAAGrI/cbFal9qLjnk/s1600-h/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL44.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL4" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL4" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7djXNqcahXs/VTGN3Rq6OrI/AAAAAAAAGrM/mYieHBwzVxA/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL4_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="412" height="266" /></a></p> <p>Linda and I left the party without a clue where life would take us next. But we left without any regrets, very few “if onlys and what ifs,” and lots of wonder-filled memories. There are of course memories of the successes, and the more painful ones of the failures. But those that are really important to us are of the “people of FOOD FOR ALL.”</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2cAJv8sGrTc/VTGN37AFIXI/AAAAAAAAGrY/gqVgxc5eOWY/s1600-h/Milan-51st-BD8.jpg"><img title="Milan 51st BD" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Milan 51st BD" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rLRJ6byKnmY/VTGN4l_F7LI/AAAAAAAAGrc/MaU63EyBPmM/Milan-51st-BD_thumb4.jpg?imgmax=800" width="161" height="134" /></a>  <a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IoXrq1mh2ag/VTGN5SSUroI/AAAAAAAAGro/VSWCGkGNRE0/s1600-h/Xmas-87-27.jpg"><img title="Xmas 87 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Xmas 87 (2)" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IGGWSh8QCKI/VTGN6MIdKaI/AAAAAAAAGrs/-Rb_GCW-V1k/Xmas-87-2_thumb3.jpg?imgmax=800" width="237" height="130" /></a></p> <p align="center"><font size="2"><strong>Staff celebrations at the office and Sue Hammond’s home</strong></font></p> <p>Our staff, many of whom would carry on for several years after our tenure, especially Jenny Foster, our original office manager, and our dedicated merchandising people, Alma Vierich, Tom Whalen, and Frank Knutson. Michael even re-hired Neill Richards after he had ordered me to let him go, when he discovered that he could not handle the east coast without Neill’s help.</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-edO67uUEOSc/VTGN6QB3I_I/AAAAAAAAGr4/T29IppPdx2c/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520FAREWELL%252520Staff%2525201%25255B13%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL Staff 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL Staff 1" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tNCAGRCUvQk/VTGN7Khjo5I/AAAAAAAAGr8/s2V4FD7k884/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520FAREWELL%252520Staff%2525201_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="269" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2">Clockwise: Lance Ternasky, Scott Christiansen, Sing Baker, Jenny Foster & Diane Adams, Theresa Lingafelter  </font></strong></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1oz97R1RIz0/VTGN7o1CvkI/AAAAAAAAGsI/wR8fMIQ3KLM/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520staff%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL staff" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL staff" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nyQrZNpCRzM/VTGN8YRq2hI/AAAAAAAAGsQ/m3H4ZmI0W70/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520staff_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="264" /></a></p> <p align="center"><font size="2"><strong>Clockwise:  Ed Drummond, Neill Richards, Leslie Temanson, Linda Hamilton; Alma Vierich; Alma & Frank Knutson; Lisa Dewey; Staff Retreat; Neill Richards & Tom Whalen;</strong></font></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QyJUoXmU1Rk/VTGN9VeeANI/AAAAAAAAGsY/J1f9_n8Jxow/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520FAREWELL%252520Vista%252520Volunteers%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL Vista Volunteers" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL Vista Volunteers" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-dWgcipihvl8/VTGN-PBzBTI/AAAAAAAAGsc/FQnhFEN0HM8/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520FAREWELL%252520Vista%252520Volunteers_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="414" height="267" /></a><font size="2"><strong>Our Americorps VISTA Volunteer Staff</strong></font></p> <p align="center">Of course, our board members, directors and advisory boards, who guided us with wise counsel and hundreds of hours of service through the years. </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-eG3smgH2ayI/VTGN-sbJAtI/AAAAAAAAGso/JoxhL1sm2x0/s1600-h/FFA-Board-at-Farewell1.jpg"><img title="FFA Board at Farewell" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Board at Farewell" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-qZcZ5BGkkTI/VTGN_coUUgI/AAAAAAAAGss/cgERN-t39M0/FFA-Board-at-Farewell_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="245" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2">FOOD FOR ALL Board Members Attending the Send-Off Party</font></strong></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ELdSRMzZR_c/VTGN_gxXmCI/AAAAAAAAGs4/FUHa9u6493M/s1600-h/FFA-FDAB3.jpg"><img title="FFA FDAB" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA FDAB" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CRFC1Uz_LLk/VTGOATTiHbI/AAAAAAAAGtA/AV4ONrZ-GRA/FFA-FDAB_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="304" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2">Funds Distribution Advisory Board Members, including back left Darryl Brock and Mike Hayes (FFA Board Members), Gianna Hochstein, Neill Richards, Aaron Zerah, Jeanine Faria, Georgianna McBurney (FFA Board Member)</font></strong></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UBcG217a1d8/VTGOBP2wEiI/AAAAAAAAGtE/UcY-SQdG3Rg/s1600-h/FFT-89-Aug-4-24.jpg"><img title="FFT 89 Aug 4 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 89 Aug 4 (2)" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-GhR35yG-GQ8/VTGOBlOTAzI/AAAAAAAAGtM/Qi7jcWwH9LU/FFT-89-Aug-4-2_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="417" height="442" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2">John Oyler of ICA gave many hours on our Funds Distribution Board and facilitated our strategic plan for expansion</font></strong></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2XhV7B9Wdg8/VTGOB7Olu6I/AAAAAAAAGtY/Ji8MqGH0e-w/s1600-h/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL-BD-14.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL BD 1" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL BD 1" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-weH8_627WCI/VTGOC-6I9rI/AAAAAAAAGtc/9a6BlNHPI28/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL-BD-1_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="415" height="268" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-motJajwg9nI/VTGODQJnY9I/AAAAAAAAGto/Rcbe9UFCJh0/s1600-h/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL-BD-24.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL BD 2" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL BD 2" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uF2zJsx80JA/VTGODzijiiI/AAAAAAAAGts/6c1ZTY_1q7s/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL-BD-2_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="415" height="268" /></a></font></strong></p> <p>Two of our founding board members could not be there: Rich Blakley, who got his church behind us early on; and Milo Lacy, retired supermarket manager who always told us the grocers would never adopt our idea. </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LevZTBMkVp0/VTGOEq82rGI/AAAAAAAAGt0/QgaFxjy7EaI/s1600-h/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL54.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL5" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL5" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SSOH6XI1t24/VTGOFXz5LMI/AAAAAAAAGt8/AsdRGELUBAo/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL5_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="414" height="267" /></a></p> <p><strong>Rich Blakley at FOOD FOR ALL Opening & Milo Lacy at Trade Show</strong></p> <p>John Benner will continue on as treasurer of the newly merged organization. Helen Anderson would remain on the board for another three years.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-GvAXn93ty4s/VTGOFu6m1SI/AAAAAAAAGuE/pZMf6RZEIuQ/s1600-h/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL-John--Helen4.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL John & Helen" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL FAREWELL John & Helen" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-c0b1bcC_J9s/VTGOGQ_S2uI/AAAAAAAAGuQ/G1qUIMAnvgk/FOOD-FOR-ALL-FAREWELL-John--Helen_th.jpg?imgmax=800" width="414" height="267" /></a></p> <p>The Store Ambassadors, local FOOD FOR ALL Councils, local grant boards, and promotional supporters who kept our message in front of shoppers.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sxoKsZa6qt0/VTGOG2qlCWI/AAAAAAAAGuU/3ZjGg95r_HI/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Volunteers2%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL Volunteers2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL Volunteers2" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ea27FX36baU/VTGOHdvVf7I/AAAAAAAAGuc/OP1EG1oF6ow/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Volunteers2_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="265" /></a></p> <p>But most of all, the hundreds of people running creative nonprofits in local communities across the country: food banks and pantries, homeless shelters, community gardens, community supported agriculture programs; and the international NGO agencies working in the most impoverished villages to help local people find their own solutions.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gljhJ7KwsBE/VTGOH_R_wOI/AAAAAAAAGuo/tIbw5-blxJM/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Grants%2525201%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL Grants 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL Grants 1" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Plh6uj6_2Eg/VTGOIXNBT9I/AAAAAAAAGus/bpH9h2nXGZM/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Grants%2525201_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="264" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1cY6embkdoQ/VTGOJNfVb6I/AAAAAAAAGu4/nYkWUzyWNPU/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Grants%2525202%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL Grants 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL Grants 2" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ew0u47bopWA/VTGOJmUBfhI/AAAAAAAAGu8/S8zUx5momy0/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Grants%2525202_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="412" height="266" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nlZUzjDIcm0/VTGOKLnF3yI/AAAAAAAAGvE/K7s8zA84P3w/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Gtrants%2525203%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL Gtrants 3" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL Gtrants 3" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5OaNSiT-Z_4/VTGOK1itBeI/AAAAAAAAGvI/xUPfCTBmRgY/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Gtrants%2525203_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="415" height="268" /></a></p> <p>In the last year of our leadership of FOOD FOR ALL we changed the name of the newsletter to <i>Catalyst </i>because we saw the purpose and effect of our grant-making to be catalyzing innovative solutions to the issue of hunger. We left the organization in the hands of those we hoped had caught some of the vision we had of a grassroots and comprehensive approach to this important cause.</p> <p>History will have to be the judge of how well we had done our work.</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-36496636497240198482015-04-08T08:41:00.001-07:002015-04-08T08:41:29.964-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 19: We Don’t Need No Gold Watch!<p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-gGQFs3P-XeI/VSVL4PPs6ZI/AAAAAAAAGls/vR4la-hGyjQ/s1600-h/India%252520Map%2525202%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img title="India Map 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="India Map 2" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-xUkJCZr1y9I/VSVL4wQfm1I/AAAAAAAAGl0/y-t9WY7-lMw/India%252520Map%2525202_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="414" height="542" /></a></p> <p>“If you go to India your life will never be the same.” Our colleagues in the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) who were assigned there always repeated the same mantra. Linda and I did not have the opportunity for an overseas assignment while on the ICA staff. Our good fortune. Just at the time of our departure from FOOD FOR ALL, our friends Roger and Maxine Butcher were organizing a “self-tour” to be led by an Indian ICA colleague, Shakuntala Jadhav, who lived in Puna. We signed on right away. A group of ten of us spent two weeks, over Christmas and New Year, 1997-8, traveling in the state of Maharashtra, and ending up in New Delhi. The Butchers had worked in India with the ICA for several years. Our longtime FOOD FOR ALL volunteer and now Board member, Helen Anderson and her husband Gordon, joined our group, along with another ICA colleague, Sara Munshin. Roger’s 80 year young mother made the trip as well, along with other assorted friends and relatives, all recruited by the Butchers.</p> <p>Shakuntala met us at the Mumbai airport a little before midnight. Our first encounter with India was seeing security guards with military rifles slung across their shoulders, standing around chatting and smoking in the nearly deserted Mumbai airport terminal. Our next sight, was more pleasant. Shakuntala showed up with an aging but reliable fifteen passenger bus with a driver and “spotter.” We were to learn how important the role of spotter is over the next two weeks. The Butchers told us they had put our group in the hands of this young, attractive, powerhouse of a woman in a sari; and we could rest easy that all would be well-organized. We had made her acquaintance two years earlier when she came to the US and stayed with us for a night while on a fundraising trip. FOOD FOR ALL was a supporter of a village project she and her husband Shankar headed up, as well as a new environmental training center that was well under construction. We were to visit both in the next few days.</p> <p>We drove at night to get to our hotel through the “suburbs” of Mumbai, barely making out the vastness of the slum neighborhoods, with occasional single electric lights visible among the many cooking fires. We could see figures of what we realized were families gathered for a “midnight snack,” possibly the only meal of the day after and before a day of scratching out a living. The experience was surreal. Out of the darkness came suddenly a brightly lit open truck with music blaring and a crowd of people following and singing. It was a wedding celebration.</p> <p>After an hour of driving on a two-lane highway, with the smells of gasoline fumes mixed with charcoal, various scents of foods cooking, garbage rotting alongside the road, occasional animal waste and open sewage, we arrived at our first night’s lodging in the little town of Punvel, and were warmly welcomed by two staff of the Punvel Palace, one of our many “minus one-star” hotels. We had not yet seen <i>Slum Dog Millionaire</i> or <i>Best Exotic Marigold Hotel</i> so had nothing to compare. The rooms were clean and we were exhausted. So we slept. We woke with the residents of Punvel already at work with the sunrise. Our hotel room overlooked a small lumber yard. The view of workmen, trucks being loaded, and cows meandering was strange but seemed to totally fit the scene.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-zMdi644ARck/VSVL5X0syoI/AAAAAAAAGl8/2gZ_SShGnww/s1600-h/Punvel%252520Stay%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Punvel Stay" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Punvel Stay" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Q28kIZCes6Y/VSVL5_nyAoI/AAAAAAAAGmA/8VtxorJfK10/Punvel%252520Stay_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="412" height="266" /></a></p> <p>Taking a shower in India is an interesting experience. The bathroom does not contain a shower. The bathroom is the shower. And if the hotel staff are on the ball and stoke the boiler, you might get hot water. To our surprise, the hotel staff had breakfast prepared for us. Our expectations were not exceeded. An over-cooked egg and toast and some kind of fruit. And a bottle of water or a sugary orange drink. But we were hungry so we ate.</p> <p>Shakuntala was ready for us. The plan was to spend the first week visiting ICA projects in the State of Maharashtra, and the second week as tourists. We thanked the Punvel Palace staff, boarded our little bus, and drove back to Mumbai so we could see what we had only sensed on the trip from the airport. We had a view of slum neighborhoods as far as we could see. Mumbai is a vast sea of people, animals, trucks (called Goods Carriers), three-wheeled motorized vehicles used for taxis, and for transporting anything and everything, all constantly moving. Everyone in India seems to be on the way somewhere. The only time we saw people who might be taking a break from their incessant activity was late at night around the cooking pots.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-S6nCWvEbPJw/VSVL6W6ZtBI/AAAAAAAAGmM/JUrKw5tiRBw/s1600-h/Punvel%252520to%252520Mumbai%252520Day%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Punvel to Mumbai Day" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Punvel to Mumbai Day" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-zu9DD8d9b0A/VSVL69Y9e4I/AAAAAAAAGmU/fmv8BaZo_Ec/Punvel%252520to%252520Mumbai%252520Day_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="406" height="262" /></a></p> <p>On the way back to our hotel we stopped at a nearby project in the little town of Chikhale which was run by women making clothing, then saw our first village school, one room with bare walls and children sitting on a dirt floor, after which we visited a family of an ICA staffer. Monu’s son had been in a motorcycle accident, and the Butchers had collected a sum of money to help the family during his recovery at home.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-oqwJXrtiyQM/VSVL7vk8f2I/AAAAAAAAGmc/bsKeXrRqSQI/s1600-h/Mumbai%252520Day%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Mumbai Day" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Mumbai Day" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--SUF1n7NspU/VSVL8KjY3UI/AAAAAAAAGmk/6mFJ2hFXYYE/Mumbai%252520Day_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="263" /></a></p> <p>After a second night at the Punvel Palace we were on the road to Puna, the second largest city in Maharashtra where the Jadhavs lived. They managed several of the ICA projects with a small staff in some nearby villages. We were treated to a real “home-cooked” Indian dinner on Christmas day at their home, prepared and served by Shakuntala and some women friends. Since Puna is a large city, our hotel accommodations were a bit more comfortable.</p> <p>The next day we were on our way to the Environmental Training Center in a town called Malegaon. The Center was nearly complete and served many of the surrounding villages as a resource for developing best practices in conservation and farming. Our next overnight was in the town of Telegaon. We were on the way to a village where we visited a residential school the ICA had started, another that the ICA helped drill a new village well, and finally one of the poorest villages where we were met by the village band (with instruments made from various sizes of metal drums), marched the two blocks to the town center, and marked on the forehead by the village women. </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-AXHNiKfj7ks/VSVL819QP0I/AAAAAAAAGms/7bNNairM1Oo/s1600-h/Pune%252520Day%252520One%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img title="Pune Day One" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Pune Day One" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ta5N1BxXO6E/VSVL9oL0WAI/AAAAAAAAGmw/eKRwQ5F6zn4/Pune%252520Day%252520One_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="264" /></a></p> <p>We sat and learned of how proud they were of the partnership they had with ICA and how they discovered the power and importance of the women of their village (in India rural society, the women do most of the hard work and the men make all the decisions). We were even invited into one of the homes for afternoon tea.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-r_VoXtcH3yM/VSVL-CgVRqI/AAAAAAAAGm8/akiU5gP2tq4/s1600-h/Pune%252520Day%252520One%2525202%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Pune Day One 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Pune Day One 2" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-x3mIhZwiaUs/VSVL-93n46I/AAAAAAAAGnA/VOVhocmSmOQ/Pune%252520Day%252520One%2525202_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="265" /></a></p> <p>Warm memories of these few days abound. While walking on the foot path through a field to get to a village, we met a wedding procession of poor farmers who were transporting the bride to the wedding on a two-wheel bike. The family was over-joyed at our congratulations and I am sure saw this as a good omen for the marriage. On another walk through the fields, which was the only way, other than motorcycle, to get to some villages, Roger and I offered to help a couple of farmers who were threshing grain and talked another farmer into giving us a ride in his ox cart (I confess, both were mainly for photo ops).</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-BWOqCZ9Fje0/VSVL_c-ONfI/AAAAAAAAGnM/NMR3LAy-2YM/s1600-h/Pune%252520Day%252520Two%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img title="Pune Day Two" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Pune Day Two" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ssF7eAnX5Fk/VSVL__U1LxI/AAAAAAAAGnQ/sLaf7ZYavv4/Pune%252520Day%252520Two_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="402" height="259" /></a></p> <p>In one village we were invited into a home, typical of most in rural India. There was no furniture, a dirt floor, well-swept. There was only one bare light bulb in the kitchen. Grandpa sleeping on a straw mat on the floor in one corner. Three women sitting and grinding corn. The family cow looking over a counter from her pen in one end of the house. In the kitchen no table or chairs, four stainless steel cups and plates on a shelf and one cooking pot on an open fire pit.</p> <p>Toward the end of our first week we made a long bus drive on a public bus to the city of Aurangabad, which was near the ICA’s very first Indian village project, Maliwada. The picture you have in your minds about Indian public transportation might be accurate, but you really have to experience it. I mentioned earlier that every bus has a driver and a spotter. The driver drives and operates the horn, which is more essential than the brake. The spotter sticks his head out the window and signals the driver when he assesses that it’s safe to pass. Indian highways are unique in the world. There are people walking along the roadsides, carts pulled by camels or oxen or men, motorized scooters, taxis, bicycles. There are the many trucks, buses, a few private cars, pickups, and cows. I lost all fear in the two weeks I spent in India.</p> <p>Now for the scene on the bus. People in various states of cleanliness get on and off at every bus stop. There are no smoking prohibitions on Indian buses and the sweet smell of Indian tobacco and whatever else some guys were smoking was slightly sickening, but the windows were always open so no one actually got sick on our tour. There were people carrying all sorts of things, and the body smells sitting close to fifty people added to the experience. The bathroom breaks were another scene worth telling. The driver would pull over to the side of the road by a field of grain or mustard and say “men left, women right,” while pointing. And I can testify that this was preferable to some of the public toilets in towns along the way. An eight hour bus ride I will never forget.</p> <p>The overnight in Aurangabad would have been very comfortable. The hotel rooms and beds were adequate for our needs for rest. We noticed that there was no hot water for showers and mentioned this to the hotel staff. We should have kept quiet. The boiler to heat the water was outside the hotel below our room. When the fire was lit, the smoke filled the hotel and it took several hours of burning eyes to recover enough to think of taking a shower. But the water was hot.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-JDbLcTkBMRE/VSVMAbcBeBI/AAAAAAAAGnY/GDtlDWena8s/s1600-h/Culprit%252520boiler%252520%2525282%252529%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img title="Culprit boiler (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Culprit boiler (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-xwShtjXgdLg/VSVMBHxS6NI/AAAAAAAAGnk/XHYE-NldD-A/Culprit%252520boiler%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="240" height="376" /></a></p> <p>The day following was worth it. The Ellora Caves are near Aurangabad and are a historic site of both Hindu and Buddhist temples, carved right out of the mountain. We were not prepared for the barrage of monkeys that hung around the caves; and we were surprised at how little protection the Indian government provided for its historic treasures.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-UvkYqPFjY3o/VSVMB0rlaYI/AAAAAAAAGns/wynFSyvTPhE/s1600-h/Ellora%252520Caves%252520Visit%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="Ellora Caves Visit" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Ellora Caves Visit" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ug_WS-vQuZc/VSVMCTIl8AI/AAAAAAAAGnw/dsHcnrX70fE/Ellora%252520Caves%252520Visit_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="270" /></a></p> <p>The real treat of the day was the visit to the village of Maliwada. Shakuntala and her husband Shankar had been early ICA staff in this village in the 1970s. The villagers remembered her and gathered around with exuberance. We toured the village. It didn’t take that long. The one indelible image that remains with me is the dozens of children crowding around us, following us shouting and waving for attention the whole time. The mural of the mountain and the Dalatabad Fort you could see from the village was still visible on the community center building. This took me back to my ICA staff days. I always wanted to go to Maliwada. Now I was there.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-pv0JCJkwaJs/VSVMC2TH_rI/AAAAAAAAGn8/S5tNW0iOHYw/s1600-h/Maliwada%252520Day%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Maliwada Day" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Maliwada Day" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-zb4K-k375P4/VSVMD8WqgII/AAAAAAAAGoA/iZ7f_ZVogZ4/Maliwada%252520Day_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="264" /></a></p> <p>After Maliwada we were ready to be tourists. Shakuntala got us back on the public bus for the trip back to Pune, another eight hour experience of Indian in-country travel, driver laying on horn, spotter calculating the inches for safe passing, wonderful mass of humanity packed together into a microcosm of spaceship earth. I must confess I loved it. On one occasion when Shakuntala and I got separated from the group for an hour or so, she pitched me for how cheap it would be for Linda and me to live on our retirement income in India. For a moment that sounded really good. This woman was very convincing. Her husband had said to us once: “She is a very powerful woman.” (Shakuntala died in 2003 of cancer).</p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-rgsAwMsjgr4/VSVMEMCyfiI/AAAAAAAAGoM/Mf8FuiPznbA/s1600-h/Shakuntula%252520Red%252520Fort%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Shakuntula Red Fort" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Shakuntula Red Fort" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Ynip4gxOayA/VSVMEusbolI/AAAAAAAAGoU/6r2aKpp0hIs/Shakuntula%252520Red%252520Fort_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="317" height="316" /></a></p> <p>We were now prepared for the tourist experience. The flight to Jaipur on Air India was a total surprise. We had just taken off for an hour flight when we were served a delicious, full meal. We had hardly time to enjoy it when the landing lights came on. The stay in Jaipur encompassed a visit to the “Pink Palace” of some emperor, a ride on an elephant, and our taxi driver stopping a local camel driver to allow those of us who wanted to ride his camel for a photo.</p> <p>Our accommodations were fine, except we had to keep our hotel room window closed to keep the monkeys from entering during the night. Getting up early in the morning gave us the experience of seeing the city of Jaipur waking up. Monkeys heading for the roofs, cows meandering through the street to be fed by merchants. Street sweepers beginning to clean the piles of trash.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-FVrrqQhijIk/VSVMFUgK74I/AAAAAAAAGoc/W3OK3MTjkx0/s1600-h/Jaipur%252520Day%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Jaipur Day" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Jaipur Day" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-fGKUhF_FxIE/VSVMFx5IVbI/AAAAAAAAGog/nJkWPF40hGM/Jaipur%252520Day_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="406" height="262" /></a></p> <p>Next to experience was the Indian train ride to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Again, we were surprised at the modern comforts. I believe the fact that Shakuntala had arranged for us to have assigned seating had something to do with our comfort level. They actually served us a meal on the train. Hotel accommodations in Agra were a slight improvement. The early morning visit to the Taj Mahal was an inspiring experience. We got to see the sun rising over the Taj, from the island across the river to the back, due to an encounter with a “tour guide” and his boatman who wanted to take us across the river to a sandbar, promising a unique experience. So Linda, Helen Anderson and I took him up on it. It was a spectacular view. We later discovered that it was the only day in about three months that the cloud cover allowed for viewing the sunrise. Dickering on the price of the tour was fun (200 rupees? No, he meant 200 rupees each—so $10 for the three of us) and made us feel like cheapskates.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Rzpp_K4cWRM/VSVMGd-Q9lI/AAAAAAAAGos/0PLu4rPtnKo/s1600-h/Taj%252520Mahal%252520Day%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Taj Mahal Day" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Taj Mahal Day" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-pcgvf-3TbFI/VSVMG7kaQtI/AAAAAAAAGow/yQYkU_FT4Vw/Taj%252520Mahal%252520Day_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="264" /></a></p> <p>A train trip the next day landed us in New Delhi, and preparations for our trip home. Visits to the Red Fort in Old Delhi, an ancient mosque, a sound-and-light show, the Mahatma Gandhi museum, Indira Gandhi’s home, and changing hotels because Shakuntala happened to see a rat running along the hotel balcony rounded out our two week immersion in India. </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-tmAnbhppt0I/VSVMHVt9KiI/AAAAAAAAGo8/_xhSDTvtxx0/s1600-h/Delhi%252520Days%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Delhi Days" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Delhi Days" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-gRZ2a5yeL_k/VSVMILPqWqI/AAAAAAAAGpA/O4zHgtNBbB0/Delhi%252520Days_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="263" /></a></p> <p>Someone in our group, while wandering the neighborhood of the hotel, discovered a “pancake house” and a “21 flavors ice cream store” in the same building. We made several trips there over the three days stay.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-5MPKHHLoBUY/VSVMIwopAKI/AAAAAAAAGpM/VVt8w0B5zuI/s1600-h/Return%252520Home%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Return Home" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Return Home" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-wpchQQReF8k/VSVMJ9K_5eI/AAAAAAAAGpU/EGcHojnt8FU/Return%252520Home_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="405" height="261" /></a></p> <p>We returned home on January 5<sup>th</sup>, 1998, exhausted but totally grateful for the India experience. India is truly a life-changing event. The contrasts of our first week of seeing the extreme poverty that is much of rural and urban Indian life, and the modern comforts of the second week’s tour were stark. It’s just that India is too much of everything. A feast of sight and sound. Too much poverty and suffering. Too many people. Too much complexity. And yet somehow it seems to work.</p> <p>So what has this to do with the FOOD FOR ALL story? Linda and I had turned in our resignations. We had not yet had time to reflect on our FOOD FOR ALL journey. But as we began to piece together the fabric of our life through the past couple of decades, what was becoming clear was that we had participated in a grand experiment of what it means to be of service. If we had ever thought that we were going to change the world or save it, such thinking evaporated in India. And yet we saw with our own eyes change occurring. We heard with our own ears from people in villages stories of hope and pride in their accomplishments. We felt privileged to be even a small part of it all. We realized that it had never been about us and what we could accomplish. We were riding on waves of change that took us along with them. We were facilitators. We were the invisible presence that saw to it that when an individual, a town, a village, a group of any sort, experienced a success in any endeavor that we were a part of, they would look at the accomplishment and be able to say: “We did it ourselves.”</p> <p>The few million dollars in grants that had passed from supermarket check stands through FOOD FOR ALL’s grants to self-help projects such as the ICA’s village development projects were just part of the human community’s struggle to say to itself: “Life is good! The future is open!”</p> <p>It is good to be a part of something like that. Who could ask for anything more?</p> <p>In the words of a poem by D.H. Lawrence:</p> <p>Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!</p> <p>A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.</p> <p>If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!</p> <p>If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!</p> <p>If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed</p> <p>By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos</p> <p>of the world</p> <p>Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;</p> <p>If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge</p> <p>Driven by invisible blows,</p> <p>The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall</p> <p>find the Hesperides.</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-16653516447040523552015-03-23T15:11:00.001-07:002015-03-23T15:11:59.640-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 18: Our Last Hurrah!<p>"Where is Melrose?"</p> <p>Those were the first words I remember coming out of the mouth of my new boss, Michael Donkis, the new CEO of FICAH/FOOD FOR ALL when he arrived at our humble headquarters in Redlands. Michael had been the paid executive of the Food Industry Crusade Against Hunger for the past few years. FICAH was headquartered in Washington D.C. with donated office space from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), the lobbying arm of the supermarket industry.</p> <p>It was sometime in early 1997, after our boards had concluded the legal paperwork that merged our two organizations. I suppose I could have fought a little harder. I might even have demanded that I be given the prominent staff position. Perhaps holding out that Michael and a couple of his staff would have to go. Our board had given me permission to abort the entire merger if I was not totally comfortable with how it was going. Hindsight is always better?!</p> <p>We were beyond the point of no return. FOOD FOR ALL was already set to enter the Chicago market with Jewel-Osco stores. We had negotiated an entry into the Philadelphia metro area. It looked like we were truly ready for the expansion we had envisioned. I arranged for a trip to Chicago for Frank Knutson, who was on our merchandising team, and me, for the set up of FOOD FOR ALL displays throughout the Chicago and northern Illinois area. Linda was also set to make the trip to arrange for the organization of a local grant board and volunteer structure for this new area. To our pleasant surprise, everything went smoothly and within ten days all the stores were installed and a local grant board was organized, trained and ready to go to work.</p> <p>Neill Richards, our east coast staff person, meanwhile was moving things along in the Philadelphia area in preparation for an expansion down the east coastline. We were anticipating that our newly merged organization would make for relatively easy sailing for our year round program. It might even be possible to convert some of the formerly Holiday only supermarket chains.</p> <p>Two trends were going to raise obstacles for us, one external and one internal. The external was our old friend/enemy "mergers & acquisitions." Safeway was taking full control of Vons in Southern California and Safeway had never got on board with our idea. So almost as soon as we got our program going in the Vons Pavilions stores we were notified that they were not going ahead chain-wide. Ironically, due to our publishing a promotional article for Vons in our newsletter, we discovered that Ron Burke, new owner of Ralphs, had his corporate ego bruised and almost overnight ordered his hatchet man, Darius Anderson, to inform us that they were discontinuing the FOOD FOR ALL relationship. To add insult to injury, in the meeting I had with him and his assistant, Sharon Davis (yes, wife of Governor Grey Davis), that Ralphs would be setting up a "copycat" (my words) program of their own. No amount of reasoning was of any avail. And of course, the new Ralphs program lasted less than a year and in any case the company was sold to Fred Meyer within the next two years.</p> <p>The internal situation had to do with conflicting cultures. I could try to blame it all on Michael Donkis, but that would hardly cover it. FICAH was made up of retired, and a few current food industry executives, who were used to operating in a traditional top-down style within an "old boys' network." We had spent more than ten years working to develop a grassroots, bottom-up and participatory organization, including our board of directors, many of whom were food industry executives who had to be "trained" in a new style of management. It gave me a little comfort when, in one of our combined board meetings as we were trying to bring the two organizations together, one of our food industry members said to the group: "You know, at FOOD FOR ALL we make decisions a little differently than you have been used to. We make decisions by consensus."</p> <p>It was late spring of 1997. Michael showed up at our office in Redlands driving a shiny red convertible. He mentioned that he paid for the upgrade himself, letting us know that he wasn't living high off of hungry people, I suppose. He was on his way to Los Angeles to look for an apartment. Within a couple of weeks he had indeed moved into one and it was within a few blocks of, yes, Melrose Avenue. Our staff actually got to see it when Michael invited us for a "housewarming brunch."</p> <p>Michael Donkis fit in well with the top-down culture we were trying to merge with. While giving us assurances that the FOOD FOR ALL way would not be lost, he was making it clear that he was going to be in charge. There would be a few minor skirmishes and negotiations over the remaining months of '97. You discover a lot about your own mind games when confronted with a sudden loss of control which you never really had but convinced yourself you did.</p> <p>When I finally realized the direction the organization would very likely be moving, I made one last appeal to the officers of the new board. I should have known that Michael would be backed up. I had been in a similar position with a few employees I had conflicts with and our board always stuck with me. It was becoming clear that I was to have little or no part in the staffing decisions of the future organization. Things came to a head when, one day Michael took me aside and said: "I've decided we need to let Neill Richards and Bill Timrud go. Why don't you phone them?" Neill and Bill had both been key in holding down our entire operation in the eastern U.S., Neill with us almost from the beginning in several roles and Bill managing all of New England. When the shock wore off that I was going to have to tell them their services were no longer required, I informed Michael that I was not going to end their jobs with a phone call.</p> <p>I got on a plane for what was to be my last trip to Newark and Hartford in service of FOOD FOR ALL. Neill picked me up at the Newark airport and we made the two hour trip to Hartford where, over dinner, I gave them the news and their termination notices. Bill was to make the arrangements to close the Hartford office. Neill worked out of his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey. I also let them know that when I returned to California, I was turning in my own resignation. Before I left for home, I phoned Linda, who already had sensed what our decision was. We were both sad but resigned that we had given 13 years of our lives to putting something into history that made a difference.</p> <p>So what do you do after an amazing 13 years? You take your final vacation time over Christmas and New Year. And you go to India. No, not to find a guru or live in an ashram. You go with some friends and visit some of the village projects that FOOD FOR ALL had given grants to.</p> <p>Then you come back for your going away party.</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-28892218987648766062015-03-18T09:42:00.001-07:002015-03-18T09:45:49.487-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 17: Mergers & Acquisitions<p>I once thought I knew a lot about the food industry. Especially the retail supermarket end of it. I studied it. I researched the 50 major markets in the U.S. I had them all plotted on a big map in the FOOD FOR ALL “war room” in our national headquarters at 112 ½ East Olive in Redlands. I knew who all the major players were in each of those fifty. I had actually lived in several of them: Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Minneapolis. We had managed somehow to have a presence in eight of them and were positioned to add three or four more in the next couple of years. It is the fall of 1996.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-RO9L7SASBQo/VQmrudZC1wI/AAAAAAAAGk8/sbVV8IKhoek/s1600-h/FFA%25252087%252520to%25252097%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 87 to 97 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 87 to 97 (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-HYpJLXZXXy0/VQmruz0_nKI/AAAAAAAAGlE/s8z4Uv08fxw/FFA%25252087%252520to%25252097%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="280" /></a></p> <p>As I mentioned in the previous episode, FOOD FOR ALL was at a turning point. We had determined policies from the conception of our project that would require us to attract the participation of supermarket operators in a year-round effort, and that would make it imperative to attract support from food manufacturers and suppliers to sustain this program aimed at nothing less than reducing and ultimately eliminating hunger. The policies were simple. Ninety per cent of every dollar contributed at a supermarket checkout would go directly to those nonprofits working in the anti-hunger field, three-fourths to the local area where they originated, and one-fourth to international projects that were aimed at self-sufficiency.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-V92qA1bKneY/VQmqzhDgj6I/AAAAAAAAGjs/jg_b1K8TpXg/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Dollar%252520card%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL Dollar card" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL Dollar card" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-AzYD3-MI7No/VQmq0IN8owI/AAAAAAAAGj0/q0v9Pzjqnnw/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Dollar%252520card_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="199" height="327" /></a>  <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-b3xzG5jjJJ0/VQmq0nOLgUI/AAAAAAAAGj8/Yxw1tVg0sdo/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520bar-coded%252520card%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL bar-coded card" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL bar-coded card" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-5_4XNCcd4JE/VQmq1KI-9CI/AAAAAAAAGkA/uueAKHghvpk/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520bar-coded%252520card_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="196" height="329" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-8fy9VW9SFAo/VQmq1nfa-6I/AAAAAAAAGkM/w_Hulp1LNGs/s1600-h/20141115_004547090_iOS%252520%2525283%252529%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="20141115_004547090_iOS (3)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="20141115_004547090_iOS (3)" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-LVHUciEfw0E/VQmq2gVjDOI/AAAAAAAAGkU/V313or72zfE/20141115_004547090_iOS%252520%2525283%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="290" /></a></p> <p> I had also done the math. We needed to have FOOD FOR ALL displays in about four thousand supermarkets to make our program sustainable. We were currently in a little over thirteen hundred.</p> <p>So what was making this such a difficult idea to sell? We could say the business environment. We might assign it to corporate greed. Competitiveness for the consumer dollar. I am continually haunted by the conversation I had with a food industry lobbyist at a Food Marketing Institute convention a few years back: “I applaud you for your efforts. But I must tell you that you have no idea of the forces that are marshalled against everything you stand for.” I took that into my subconscious but it did not immediately register. What were these “forces” he referred to? I have now reflected on this and have decided that I have not a clue. But I have named these forces “mergers & acquisitions.”</p> <p>When we first introduced the idea of a “supermarket checkout bar-coded contribution to help end hunger,” we had no idea of the environment we were entering. We lived in Redlands, California, a small community in the Inland Empire, an hour from downtown Los Angeles. We lived two houses down from Gerrard’s Cypress Center. We shopped there. We also shopped at the Lucky Store on Cypress and Redlands Blvd. There was a Vons Supermarket in the Redlands Mall. Stater Bros. had one store just off the 10 freeway on the north side of Redlands. That was the extent of our knowledge of the food distribution system. It wasn’t long before the Vons store closed and moved out to a location where the Big Lots store is now and then closed.</p> <p>This is the environment we entered with FOOD FOR ALL in 1986. On the occasion of our first test in two supermarkets we received a check for $250 from Stater Bros. supermarkets, with a letter that endorsed our program but essentially bowed out of the initial test. This was after a meeting with Jack Brown, then CEO of Stater Bros. in which we were given the clear message that “this is a great idea and I am sure it will be successful. Stater Bros. will probably be one of the last companies to participate.” </p> <p>What was not clear at the time of our meeting was that Stater Bros was in the midst of a fight for control of the company. Jack had been hired as CEO in 1981. Shortly after that he engineered a buyout of the company with his La Cadena Investments Group, and then tried to take the company public in 1985 (the year FOOD FOR ALL was incorporated). In 1986, Ron Burkle and his Yucaipa Companies attempted a coup which was unsuccessful. Jack Brown was elected chairman and by 1987 Stater Bros. became a private company again. It was not the last company to join FOOD FOR ALL. Neither was it the first, as Jack has been quoted saying. He may be referring to that first check. I have my story and Jack has his, but as our congenial Vice President, Joe Biden, says: “They have a right to their own opinions, but not their own facts.”</p> <p>The environment Lucky Stores, our actual first major chain participant, was operating in was just as volatile. This was the time of mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, boardroom battles and stockholder proxy fights. Lucky was being acquired by American Stores, a large holding company that owned Alpha Beta Markets, Jewel-Osco stores in Chicago, and several others around the country. Eventually, Albertson’s would acquire American Stores and the Lucky brand would disappear and become known as Albertson’s. Back room deals were being made.</p> <p>Offers tendered and rejected and re-offered. Supermarkets were being sold to competitors and many closed to complete the deals. We were at the mercy of forces way beyond our control and my pay grade. My friend and FOOD FOR ALL board chairman John Benner once said to me when we were trying to figure out our next move: “One thing I’ve learned is that when the elephants are dancing, it’s best to stay off the floor.” These forces I mention both helped and hindered us. FOOD FOR ALL displays did make it into a number of Albertson’s divisions and Jewel-Osco in Chicago.</p> <p>Vons had a similar exposure during the FOOD FOR ALL era. A leveraged buyout meant a change in management just at the time we were approaching them. Then Safeway Stores, which was just leaving the Southern California market as we arrived, managed a partial purchase of Vons and will take total ownership in 1997.</p> <p>Ralphs, one of our strongest supporters and participants, was acquired in 1994 by Yucaipa Companies, headed by Ron Burkle, who had made the attempt to acquire control of Stater Bros. when FOOD FOR ALL began. He sold the company after only three years to Fred Meyer, another big operator in the northwest, which was in turn bought by Kroger, a Midwest giant.</p> <p>I give you all of this as background to the mergers and acquisitions theme as it played out in the life of two nonprofit organizations, FOOD FOR ALL, Inc. and Food Industry Crusade Against Hunger (FICAH). I had attended one of the very first meetings of the FICAH board in 1985 in Washington, D.C. to enlist their support of our idea. At the time I was assured that there was no conflict between us and we should continue to cooperate where possible. But they were not ready to adopt us. FICAH ran a holiday fundraiser using coin canisters at supermarket check stands. FOOD FOR ALL displays were year round. Both organizations depended on the supermarket companies for display space and promotional support. At some point, after FICAH hired an executive who was a marketing professional, bar-coded tickets began to replace FICAH’s traditional coin boxes. Although it was still a Holiday appeal, retail supermarket executives began to see the two approaches as duplication of effort. Especially since we were both approaching their suppliers for financial support. Most of them did not really understand the differences and never quite got what a strong connection FOOD FOR ALL made possible with their customers, many of their employees, and the local nonprofit agencies we were supporting.</p> <p>During our fiscal year 1996-97 we were approached by Michael Donkis, staff executive of FICAH about joining our efforts and eventually merging our organizations. It sounded like a good idea. We began with a meeting between John Benner and me and three board members of FICAH. Things moved quickly after a joint committee was appointed. Our attorneys drew up a plan for dissolving FOOD FOR ALL as a corporation and merging it into FICAH. So we would become a wholly owned division. I later learned that the FICAH board viewed our merger as an acquisition. Since I was approaching my 60<sup>th</sup> birthday and Michael Donkis was much younger, we decided that he would be the new President/CEO and that FOOD FOR ALL would be the name of the point of sale programs. Further decisions about staffing would be made after the experience of merging our two boards and staffs, their four persons based in Washington and our thirteen plus in Redlands, Newark and Hartford.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-UPLm-flGzQw/VQmq3LNCAwI/AAAAAAAAGkc/Oiv_QrJA3Jo/s1600-h/Catalyst%252520Fall%25252096%2525201%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Catalyst Fall 96 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Catalyst Fall 96 1" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-hZfAnhMv1yM/VQmq3lFRRLI/AAAAAAAAGkg/41o3KKl2qE8/Catalyst%252520Fall%25252096%2525201_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="204" height="283" /></a>  <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-c7uqbgb9RFo/VQmq4HhKFJI/AAAAAAAAGko/XZRy2kr2dLA/s1600-h/Catalyst%252520Fall%25252096%2525202%2525201%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Catalyst Fall 96 2 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Catalyst Fall 96 2 1" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-eGgKXyPJGiw/VQmq47PyyKI/AAAAAAAAGkw/JkBw_rbtItw/Catalyst%252520Fall%25252096%2525202%2525201_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="198" height="281" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong>FOOD FOR ALL’s Newly Named Newsletter Fall 1996 Edition</strong></p> <p>The merger was completed in January 1997. Linda and I were now officially reporting to Michael Donkis and so began a swift transformation of a grassroots, bottom up, participatory organization into what it would inevitably become. I will leave this chapter of the story of FOOD FOR ALL with these words:</p> <p>“May the forces be with you!” They most assuredly will.</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-83234749701153946782015-03-09T12:15:00.001-07:002015-03-09T12:15:24.000-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 16: The Price of Success<p>My grandfather used to warn me with these words of wisdom, when he thought I might be stepping outside the bounds of appropriate humility: “You’re getting a little too big for your britches there, young fella’.”</p> <p>As I read back over the FOOD FOR ALL annual report for our fiscal year from July 1995 to June of 1996, it appears that this was our most successful year in our eleven year history. $150,000 more raised from supermarket customers than the previous year. Additions of 75 Food 4 Less stores of the Ralphs chain in southern California; Ninety-one Waldbaum’s supermarkets in New York; Shaw’s in the Boston area; Edwards Super Foods in New Jersey.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-0fs7ruPdkOE/VP3xM2cOHcI/AAAAAAAAGhQ/2GJCP0tsat0/s1600-h/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525201%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-PkMF507MtTE/VP3xNXq3bJI/AAAAAAAAGhU/AkTG2ENsbQU/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525201_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="211" height="282" /></a><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ZVx-0EuJOl8/VP3xNzyqvHI/AAAAAAAAGhg/EiJ9ebXPKiI/s1600-h/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525206%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 6" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 6" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-d2jKw1HFbrU/VP3xOYednHI/AAAAAAAAGhk/ehFTdebowg0/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525206_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="198" height="282" /></a></p> <p>FOOD FOR ALL received a record $1,298,380 from customers of 1371 participating supermarkets and was able to make grants of $1,216,875 to 226 U.S. and 25 overseas anti-hunger projects. Food industry support was continuing to grow with 53 companies giving $187,000 in support of our expansion (Vic Lund, then chairman of American Stores leading the campaign).</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-1ie_vNOxaX8/VP3xO0YWLhI/AAAAAAAAGhs/VpQwN3KYst4/s1600-h/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525204%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 4" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 4" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-HWG7vD2yfkM/VP3xPY6VMMI/AAAAAAAAGh0/PJmx8ClsW9g/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525204_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="208" height="273" /></a><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-0J4_-nYh4FE/VP3xPy4y8NI/AAAAAAAAGh8/-x-smQi83j4/s1600-h/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525205%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 5" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 5" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-REdHCnniaw0/VP3xQcmjqGI/AAAAAAAAGiE/_ysIHFQ8MWY/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525205_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="204" height="272" /></a></p> <p>FOOD FOR ALL volunteers, numbering more than 650, helped maintain store displays, educate customers and employees, review grant applications, and conduct site visits to anti-hunger agencies.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-TshhJjvmsL0/VP3xQ82KQVI/AAAAAAAAGiM/0JHQC6hishU/s1600-h/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525202%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 2" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-8Z2k4mLIdZw/VP3xRQNzANI/AAAAAAAAGiU/Omp3vVCnngM/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525202_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="413" height="479" /></a></p> <p>Things are not always as they appear. I might say that things are never as they appear but that is another discussion.</p> <p>I had mentioned in a previous episode of the story of FOOD FOR ALL that I had allowed to be hired three staff members whose job it was to enlarge food industry support, expand financial capacity for expansion, and increase public awareness of the need for resources to fight hunger. Instead, these three staff members decided their most important tasks were searching for a new location for our offices and getting rid of our founder. As I was busy attempting to sell our program to the food industry, my attention was taken away from what was happening within our growing organization. Linda, on the other hand, was having to deal with the day-to-day internal workings of FOOD FOR ALL. One day she finally got my attention and sat me down for a “reality check.” She had done her homework: a detailed cash-flow projection that clearly showed me that our organization was heading down a financial rat-hole. We could not afford to keep the staff level we had. And worse, the three we had hired were not doing the jobs they were hired to do.</p> <p>Now what? It was clear we had an unsustainable situation. It was also clear to me that there were people who were not performing. Worse, who were undermining the organization. How do you get rid of an infection? Quickly! I called a meeting of the three staff members affected, along with Linda, the fourth staff member affected. I announced that their positions were to be eliminated, effective immediately, and that Linda would be shifted to a volunteer status, without pay. This was not well-received.</p> <p>Our thirteen member board met on February 22, 1996. I presented the situation. Our December 1995 and January 1996 revenues had not met expectations. A detailed cash flow projection (the one done by Linda) revealed that we were running at a deficit and that we needed to eliminate $200,000 in expenses, which would require the elimination of four staff positions and Linda going on “unpaid volunteer status” for the remainder of the fiscal year. Attorneys had to be consulted due to three of those let go threatening a law suit.</p> <p>The thirteen member FOOD FOR ALL board met again on April 25, 1996. Projections of customer contributions from stores were again under expectations due to an over-estimate (probably mine) of chains that did not come into the program. Discussions were beginning with Food Industry Crusade Against Hunger (FICAH) toward resolving duplication of efforts and the fact that retailers were becoming restless at having to support two fundraising organizations in their stores. A meeting was set for FOOD FOR ALL chairman and president with Michael Donkis, staff executive and Karl Schaffer, chairman of FICAH, at the upcoming Food Marketing Institute trade show to set guidelines for a dialogue. A FOOD FOR ALL committee was appointed to conduct the dialogue.</p> <p>While all this drama was going on, FOOD FOR ALL staff and boards dealing with our grant-making were continuing to work hard training our volunteer Local Grant Advisory Boards who were charged with making recommendations for grants that would address root causes of hunger. The food security movement, which involved such projects as community gardening and community supported agricultural, and micro-loan programs focusing on women’s advancement, were being explored as significant directions for the future. FOOD FOR ALL was one of the very first supporters of food security initiatives, which has today grown into a huge movement.</p> <p>Some examples of FOOD FOR ALL grants made during our fiscal year:</p> <p>A $25,000 grant was given to California Healthy Cities for their work to put food security in the forefront of municipal decision-makers. The grant was to be given to a community with a specific plan for increasing access, availability, and use of affordable nutritious food in low-income neighborhoods. A three organization collaborative in the City of Berkeley received the grant.</p> <p>$25,000 to ACCION International to develop a small loan program for low-income people in San Diego to start their own businesses.</p> <p>$20,000 to Nueva Esperanza in Holyoke, Massachusetts, to initiate a fish farming project for new sources of food and new jobs.</p> <p>$10,000 to the Watts Foundation Community Trust for the Jordan Downs Urban Garden Project to provide fresh produce, jobs, nutrition education, and business opportunities to residents of a public housing project.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-0FwEH23E_qA/VP3xRxw0QDI/AAAAAAAAGic/456x3A1mDro/s1600-h/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525203%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 3" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 95-96 Annl Report 3" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-qfQ8XiuYobo/VP3xSnXK0fI/AAAAAAAAGik/x3OdXXaJXak/FFA%25252095-96%252520Annl%252520Report%2525203_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="535" /></a></p> <p>FOOD FOR ALL was making a significant contribution in the movement to eliminate the scourge of persistent hunger. We were also forming new alliances within the anti-hunger movement. Forces beyond our control were beginning to take their toll. But we were not finished yet. We were not going to go down without a fight. At least I wasn’t. But don’t forget Grandpa’s words.</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-1473238870839682562015-02-26T14:33:00.001-08:002015-02-26T14:33:09.062-08:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 15: A Decade to Celebrate<p>What a time we had at the Redlands Country Club. It was September 1995, a balmy evening. A couple hundred people dressed up to celebrate ten years of growth from a two-store test of the FOOD FOR ALL supermarket customer contributions program to 1370 participating stores with the only year-round program focused on alleviating and eliminating hunger. The Country Club was chosen because two of our participating grocers happened to be members and were willing to use their influence. Paul and Dorothy Gerrard and Jack and Debbie Brown were gracious hosts and several of the Gerrards and Stater Bros. company family members attended. Our staff members did all the work on invitations, décor, menus and format for the evening. All Linda and I had to do was show up.</p> <p>There were congratulations and honors to go around. Members of our Board of Directors and Advisors, volunteers, dignitaries and friends gathered for a grand celebration. Celebrity Steve Allen was engaged to provide entertainment. He and his wife Jayne Meadows had signed on to our Southern California campaign and, after learning more about our cause, he actually drove to Redlands by himself and even donated the $250 standard honorarium he would have received.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-MPavst6SrjA/VO-e2p8iXUI/AAAAAAAAGcs/JUgJIVhcUvo/s1600-h/PhotoScan%252520%2525285%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="PhotoScan (5)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="PhotoScan (5)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-1vf2_hsZ1rE/VO-e32qeR3I/AAAAAAAAGcw/5H9MGNq6T4A/PhotoScan%252520%2525285%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="411" height="284" /></a></p> <p> We got our money’s worth as he held forth from the piano for an hour with his usual humor and warm presence. Honors were heaped on Paul Gerrard and Jack Brown and each made their obligatory remarks. Jack loved to tell the story of the time he ran into me at a Redlands drug store and noticed the car I was then driving. It was a 1978 Honda hatchback which had an unfortunate encounter resulting in the left side looking like it had been side-swiped by a pickup truck, which it had. In those days we couldn’t afford to have it repaired. Jack finished his comments about how Stater Bros. came to take on the FOOD FOR ALL program with: “I knew Milan was my kind of nonprofit executive. I’ve seen the car he drives.”</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-hsS__x8seH4/VO-e4RovS9I/AAAAAAAAGc4/mMMTQvpa2OQ/s1600-h/PhotoScan%252520%2525283%252529%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="PhotoScan (3)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="PhotoScan (3)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-kzkNFNqguNc/VO-e5AyNjaI/AAAAAAAAGdA/boY-1epkSuI/PhotoScan%252520%2525283%252529_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="404" height="473" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-CiI3lBYTPkg/VO-e52zQ0SI/AAAAAAAAGdI/etla2sv-qzs/s1600-h/PhotoScan%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="PhotoScan" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="PhotoScan" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-GKUpWQ8LIPA/VO-e6pIsvwI/AAAAAAAAGdQ/L765dUy5UZ0/PhotoScan_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="401" height="497" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-EtVkaY2Cid0/VO-e7O6Zu-I/AAAAAAAAGdY/TrQrHg5uEGQ/s1600-h/FFA%25252010th%252520Anniv%252520%2525282%252529%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 10th Anniv (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 10th Anniv (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Mtnz28BxjOI/VO-e73aDP0I/AAAAAAAAGdk/jM7tOYqBKu4/FFA%25252010th%252520Anniv%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="404" height="553" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-YcPl5troxaU/VO-e8i7QdwI/AAAAAAAAGds/bxwXv9otcVY/s1600-h/FFA%25252010th%252520Anniv%252520%2525283%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 10th Anniv (3)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 10th Anniv (3)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-dw30UkeoyNo/VO-e9pG2VwI/AAAAAAAAGd0/jVcDwxLzCMU/FFA%25252010th%252520Anniv%252520%2525283%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="403" height="272" /></a></p> <p>So went the evening. Linda and I were surprised with a presentation of a watercolor portrait of us by Albert Landeros, a well-known Redlands artist who had designed our first display header cards. It hung in my office until we retired and is now in our “archives” since it is too large for our tiny condo. </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-JCQcvd_jAjg/VO-e-ZFvFII/AAAAAAAAGd8/b15bmIlR5bg/s1600-h/20141121_224643150_iOS%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="20141121_224643150_iOS (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="20141121_224643150_iOS (2)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ZnaKN-Uiuok/VO-e_AEFbpI/AAAAAAAAGeA/gdzLekZ7D-Q/20141121_224643150_iOS%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="405" height="298" /></a></p> <p>This was a memorable evening celebrating a decade worth remembering. The coming decade would prove just as memorable, for many different reasons.</p> <p>Snapshot #1—August 1993 through July 1994:</p> <p>The grant we received from Phillip Morris/Kraft was to be used primarily for marketing our program to supermarkets. The first part was used up in a feasibility study and went to pay consultants and their expenses. The second part of $75,000 was to go toward hiring a professional director of marketing. After a month-long search we settled on a person from the advertising end of the food industry. I am not going to include his name because of his brief tenure with us. I will only say that he was paid more than my salary, spent most of his time hunkered down in his office cranking out marketing documents, and spent much of our marketing budget re-designing our donation cards, which we had to discard after I let him go. Lesson learned: There are professionals and there are professionals.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-p4qpzzCcfzY/VO-e_97_HhI/AAAAAAAAGeM/yQQ-Jm3uxLo/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520Dec%2525201%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 Dec 1 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 Dec 1 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-z9_zvVLwLKA/VO-fAhoQboI/AAAAAAAAGeQ/TiHMGK2e-ms/FFT%25252093%252520Dec%2525201%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="305" /></a></p> <p>In spite of spending a good part of our fiscal year that was supposed to be devoted to growing our supermarket program spinning our wheels, or worse, re-inventing them, we were able to grow our customer contribution base to $742,000 and provide grants of $680,000 to hundreds of local and to 21 international projects. This was mainly due to the dedicated volunteers and the partnering efforts of our existing retailers and food industry supporters. A highlight of the year for me personally was our September ’93 annual meeting where we elected four new board members and John Benner as Chairman. </p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-cD42J7WEC30/VO-fBOC6ZQI/AAAAAAAAGeY/41tfZYUq3_8/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520Dec%2525203%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 Dec 3" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 Dec 3" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-vK5tJ6e1jDc/VO-fBkEHR3I/AAAAAAAAGeg/9FbJ27hG_ps/FFT%25252093%252520Dec%2525203_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="412" height="534" /></a></p> <p>John came to us first as an assignment by his boss at Lucky Stores. A busy Senior Vice President for Administration, I always assumed he was there to make sure we were using those customer contributions wisely. But I soon learned what kind of man he is. He immediately pitched in and gave generously of his time and always gave us kindly but clear guidance. We often had to meet at his Lucky headquarters offices and wait until he was released from one or another executive meeting that had been called at a moment’s notice. John was there for us. There were times when I might have given in to despair but for his steadying influence. His natural way of working with people and his humor kept a number of our board members going when the going got rough. His friendship was genuine, and I cherish that as I do so many of those I had the good fortune of working alongside. I had been after him for at least a couple of years to take a more active leadership role and was elated when he finally agreed to accept the chairmanship of our board. John will become a true partner in leading FOOD FOR ALL into the future, even after I am gone.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-QGyBiWtRN7k/VO-fCbcs5LI/AAAAAAAAGeo/UqHkjeWgqUI/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520Dec%2525202%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 Dec 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 Dec 2" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-cg55t4Q4-cg/VO-fDMOXsrI/AAAAAAAAGew/rbtq9Dqt45Y/FFT%25252093%252520Dec%2525202_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="551" /></a></p> <p>Snapshop #2—You would think I had learned my lesson by now. But after hiring and firing one “chief marketing officer” and still having the mandate of our relationship with Phillip Morris/Kraft to expand our supermarket program, I decided that ‘three is better than one’ and charged ahead like the proverbial bull in the china shop. Well, not that I made these decisions all alone, but I will acknowledge that “the buck stopped here” as my friend Frank’s hero Harry Truman was fond of saying. So I hired a marketing director, a communications director, and a fundraiser. All this occurred during our fiscal year July 1994 to June 1995.</p> <p>My confidence was buoyed up by a stop I made at the Redlands downtown post office, which was my assigned task as I walked the 3/4 mile to our office every morning. There was an envelope from an accounting firm in Las Vegas. Inside was a check for $50,000. It was made payable to “The Salvation Army Food for All Program.” My heart jumped and then dropped. Must be a mistake. I decided to send the check back to the accountant with a letter asking for clarification. The next week a check arrived made payable to “FOOD FOR ALL.” This was incredible. Who would send an unsolicited donation of $50,000? Over the next few months, more checks arrived. I think we received three or four checks in similar amounts. I decided, after the shock wore off, to phone the accounting firm in Las Vegas. I don’t even remember the name of the CPA, but I do remember he informed me that “this is not the total amount you will probably receive.” I then decided that I had better make a trip to Las Vegas. It turned out that this anonymous donor, a wealthy widow, had been buying FOOD FOR ALL donation cards for a few years before she died. Her husband had been a successful real estate agent. We were to receive a portion of an estate worth about 12 million dollars. Ours might be 2-3 million. Before you begin to congratulate me on our good fortune, I should tell you that the estate was totally tied up in real estate, and real estate lawyers were getting substantial fees for administering the estate. And the real estate market was in the process of tanking. I, of course, was unaware of this at the time. So we now had three new staff persons who were going to help us implement our expansion plan.</p> <p>So what did our new additions bring to the party? I suppose I could credit them with helping us plan the 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary celebration. I could say our new marketing director tried to arrange some promotions with food industry partners. I could say our fundraiser attempted to take the burden off the President in arranging our annual appeal to the food manufacturers. I could say our communications director tried to be creative in communicating our message. But what I came to see was that our three new staff members spent most of their time communicating with one another, strategizing about moving our office to a prominent location on Interstate 10, with signage to broadcast the FOOD FOR ALL name to passersby, and figuring out that it was time for our founder, Linda, to go. I, of course, was busy trying to expand our program nationwide, and was not aware of what was going on within our own organization. This is the reason I have decided to omit the names of our new hires. The people I allowed to be hired to help us, invariably, did not “get it.” From the three staff I hired in New England in the initial stages of introducing our program there, to the hiring of our marketing, PR and fundraising people, they just never got the message of what FOOD FOR ALL was all about.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-L2mX2vU3Q4A/VO-fDiyKpiI/AAAAAAAAGe0/kn1nkVUb984/s1600-h/FFA%25252094-95%252520Annl%252520Report%2525201%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 94-95 Annl Report 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 94-95 Annl Report 1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-BOUPVKT_ZLU/VO-fEY7p-qI/AAAAAAAAGfA/mj_DefzYehM/FFA%25252094-95%252520Annl%252520Report%2525201_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="215" height="276" /></a>  <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ZRVlhkwM5S4/VO-fExLBU2I/AAAAAAAAGfM/jNM1rX7vBkc/s1600-h/FFA%25252094-95%252520Annl%252520Report%2525204%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 94-95 Annl Report 4" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 94-95 Annl Report 4" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-SZ78dmwQvw8/VO-fFreLZiI/AAAAAAAAGfQ/lkNqQW3HuQk/FFA%25252094-95%252520Annl%252520Report%2525204_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="188" height="276" /></a></p> <p>But in spite of these minor issues, our fiscal year 1994-1995 saw our supermarket donation program grow to 1370 supermarkets in California, Nevada, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey. Donations during this fiscal year reached $1,148,000. Our grant program allocated $455,000 in California, $60,000 in New England, and $173,000 to international self-help projects.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Twcl4lCTmGQ/VO-fGUhCh0I/AAAAAAAAGfc/kZr8Mw9SPL8/s1600-h/FFA%25252094-95%252520Annl%252520Report%25252015%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 94-95 Annl Report 15" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 94-95 Annl Report 15" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-7guVnehMI2E/VO-fHG_GynI/AAAAAAAAGfg/ZTW_km9RMp4/FFA%25252094-95%252520Annl%252520Report%25252015_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="206" height="277" /></a>  <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-0K5HzvKeSQo/VO-fH_Z163I/AAAAAAAAGfo/lrSaqzwORWI/s1600-h/FFA%25252094-95%252520Annl%252520Report%25252010%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 94-95 Annl Report 10" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 94-95 Annl Report 10" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-dzgIvrdusrI/VO-fIqG3ioI/AAAAAAAAGfw/2Zyyv2HckWo/FFA%25252094-95%252520Annl%252520Report%25252010_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="195" height="278" /></a></p> <p>What a decade we had! What a ride we were on! What a privilege we were granted, to be a part of this amazing venture! Whatever the future holds, we will be there to experience and celebrate it! No matter what!</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-64620096248480966562015-02-07T16:31:00.001-08:002015-02-07T16:31:27.664-08:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 14B: A Two Year Blast<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“Mr. Hamilton, my name is Adriene, my boss is Terry Fassburg, Vice President for Corporate Relations of Frito-Lay, based in Dallas. He likes what he heard about FOOD FOR ALL and would like you to come to Dallas, at our expense, to meet with supermarket executives and anti-hunger agencies.”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We were just getting rolling in California and slowly growing our program in New England, but this seemed like an offer we couldn’t refuse. Adriene made the flight reservations and when I arrived at the airport, I discovered that I was flying first-class, which was truly a first for me. I was used to taking Southwest where you were loaded in groups and they didn’t seem to know what first-class meant. In fact, on a subsequent flight to Dallas I had to ask Adriene to please “fly me coach.” It didn’t seem right for an executive of an anti-hunger fundraising organization to be flying that high.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">However, I was wined and dined for a few days on two trips to Dallas-Fort Worth. Terry Fassburg was one of those food industry executives whose heart was in the right place. A tall, thin and trim thirty-something man in a dark blue suit. We hit it off from the start, even though his assistant made all the arrangements and appointments for me. The Alpha Beta chain had stores in the area, which was a natural connection for us, and we were received warmly and got a positive response. They were willing to install our program, assuming the local nonprofits, including the big Dallas Food Bank would support it. What could go wrong? Who is going to turn down an untapped source of funds for their work of providing food for hungry people? When Adriene and I met with two staffers of the Dallas Food Bank, we received lots of questions and some tentative responses. We wondered why the Executive Director, Lorrie somebody—I’ve forgotten her name, wasn’t present.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I left my second week in Dallas feeling like we had a go-ahead to bring FOOD FOR ALL to Texas. Frito-Lay was prepared to provide major financial and promotional backing. The retailers were ready, as were other nonprofits we met with. But there was one problem, which I discovered after Linda and I had left on a driving vacation to the Midwest. It was the middle of summer. We were somewhere in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I called to check in at the FOOD FOR ALL office. “Milan, Terry Fassburg is trying to reach you. He got a call from the Food Bank Director, who is accusing him of trying to pull a fast one for his and Frito-Lay’s benefit. He wants you to call her and try to straighten things out.” I spent the next hour on the phone with Lorrie somebody, being accused, politely of course, of everything from being a scam artist to taking food out of the mouths of hungry Texans. I learned something that summer about the politics of the anti-hunger business. Lorrie somebody was not only the Executive Director of one of the largest Second Harvest food banks in the country. She had also got herself elected to the Dallas City Council. And no one was going to come into her turf without her personal permission. Terry was totally blind-sided, devastated and humiliated. FOOD FOR ALL was not going to Dallas-Fort Worth. Lorrie somebody had won. It was truly a lose-lose-lose situation. I never found out whatever happened to Lorrie somebody. She certainly did not last long in either of her positions of power. But she had poisoned the well enough to keep a good thing from happening. And we had other fields to sow. Terry Fassburg still agreed to be on our Food Industry Advisory Board, but it was not more than a year later he was transferred to a position at PepsiCo’s headquarters on the east coast and we lost touch.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">There were other markets where we were exploring expansion possibilities. Phoenix was one where we had some connections. Rich Blakley’s father was a retired lawyer who lived there and had connections with retail grocers. Ross Blakley hosted me on a couple of trips and introduced me to his contacts. We received interest but no commitments. And we were in the midst of a major campaign in Southern California. We needed to focus more attention there.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The two years from August 1991 to June of 1993 contain a swirl of activity that reads like a journal of highlights--from our newsletters:</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">August ’91--Independent supermarkets emphasis; World Food Day promotions in all three regions; new staff members Teresa Lingafelter and Alma Vierich hired; 8 new VISTA volunteers positions approved; FOOD FOR ALL chapters started.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-PDB-wzGSYBo/VNauA6zTH3I/AAAAAAAAGTw/Eh08VXgzh50/s1600-h/FFT%25252091%252520Aug%2525201%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 91 Aug 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 91 Aug 1" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-iKccY83NQbs/VNauBr-zejI/AAAAAAAAGT0/JpEeHkzFBi8/FFT%25252091%252520Aug%2525201_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="201" height="271" /></a>  <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-o4e-Ao7ozh8/VNauCN3YIrI/AAAAAAAAGT8/8BFdcUjYahc/s1600-h/FFT%25252091%252520Aug%2525206%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 91 Aug 6" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 91 Aug 6" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-M2E3DqaX6v0/VNauCmNNQgI/AAAAAAAAGUE/uGoAIH59UAw/FFT%25252091%252520Aug%2525206_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="202" height="272" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">November ’91—September gathering of 13 international NGOs; Gelson’s of LA added 20 more stores; 6<sup>th</sup> annual meeting with 40 attending; Orange County Hunger Coalition facilitated by FOOD FOR ALL; new board members Barry Bauchwitz of food industry and Betty Elliott from Congressman Brown’s office; Neill Richards joins staff as east coast VP; Southern California Awareness Campaign gains momentum; promotions in stores with Buena Vista Winery, KABC LA and KSGN Riverside.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-BEgTebEc6Z4/VNauDDy6LWI/AAAAAAAAGUM/vct3Bweac8I/s1600-h/FFT%25252091%252520Nov%2525201%25255B10%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 91 Nov 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 91 Nov 1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-bYJ8OimZWc4/VNauDjpl9GI/AAAAAAAAGUU/gzwrx5iSMxU/FFT%25252091%252520Nov%2525201_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="196" height="272" /></a>  <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-eoehCw7fKc8/VNauEYVVGrI/AAAAAAAAGUg/pJrUy7CtMz0/s1600-h/FFT%25252091%252520Nov%2525203%25255B9%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 91 Nov 3" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 91 Nov 3" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-_BrOwYwD9Oc/VNauFDmqZDI/AAAAAAAAGUk/uEV9TESZxeU/FFT%25252091%252520Nov%2525203_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="204" height="268" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-VzYhw0gTFaU/VNauFnraTGI/AAAAAAAAGUs/bZuQDLbprmM/s1600-h/FFT%25252091%252520Nov%2525204%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 91 Nov 4" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 91 Nov 4" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-6nQ9PAOqIUk/VNauGJjl_gI/AAAAAAAAGU0/pstH9HDrYWk/FFT%25252091%252520Nov%2525204_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="271" height="345" /></a></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">May ’92—Waldbaum’s Foodmart food show and presentation to President Ken Abrahams for his company’s passing the half-million dollar mark in customer contributions; decision to designate May store donations to victims of violence following the Rodney King verdict and riots, which happened right in the middle of our Southern California expansion campaign; executives of Kraft General Foods, Chiquita, and Certified Grocers join our Food Industry Advisors; Bill Chandler, Mayor Tom Bradley’s press secretary, joins our Public Relations Board; TV spots produced featuring actress Beverly Archer of Major Dad TV show and Harry Blackstone, world-renowned Magician and Redlands resident (Harry actually passed a wand through the center of an inflated balloon during the shoot); growing food industry support due to letter campaign headed by Larry Del Santo, Chairman of Lucky Stores; volunteer support continues to grow through formation of chapters and addition of Store Ambassadors; formation of a volunteer Connecticut FOOD FOR ALL Council; formation of a domestic hunger funding task force and survey of our Local Grant Boards and agencies to determine root causes of hunger.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-St5o7JwMdbs/VNauG1ETSTI/AAAAAAAAGVA/wFdYLuxy0dI/s1600-h/FFT%25252092%252520May%2525201%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 92 May 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 92 May 1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-hUh8BpLujkk/VNauHaXuLkI/AAAAAAAAGVE/9h5gPRQX_qI/FFT%25252092%252520May%2525201_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="204" height="278" /></a>  <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-oD-H6M_46I4/VNauHyxSmvI/AAAAAAAAGVQ/Kfgv79AUhNc/s1600-h/FFT%25252092%252520May%2525202%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 92 May 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 92 May 2" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ULZYWEg-fCQ/VNauIsDwc-I/AAAAAAAAGVU/ej2ZrDriKYE/FFT%25252092%252520May%2525202_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="197" height="277" /></a></font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Skc0HxKmzVw/VNauJDdGAnI/AAAAAAAAGVg/nHEDwK1xjyM/s1600-h/Untitled-11%252520%2525282%252529%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img title="Untitled-11 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Untitled-11 (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-OVoEVWQsqMQ/VNauJ4Hq7lI/AAAAAAAAGVo/IgnbwOeQtXU/Untitled-11%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="304" height="204" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">November ’92—Albertson’s added 108 Southern California stores, Smith’s Food & Drug 16, Petrini’s 18 in the San Francisco Bay Area, Big Y in New England 25 new stores (due to our original supporter Dan Lescoe becoming VP of Marketing for Big Y); presented $100,000 to 43 agencies in response to victims of the April LA riots, attended by supermarket executives and Mayor Tom Bradley, as well as Kellogg’s Company (the one I met with early on and came away with 2 boxes of cereal) which sponsored a full-page ad in the LA Times in support of FOOD FOR ALL.; trade show presence at Food Marketing Institute (FMI) annual show in Chicago, California Grocers Convention (CGA) in San Diego, and Certified Grocers (CERGRO) in Long Beach; nationwide study for expansion feasibility funded by Phillip Morris and Kraft; new Board members Alan Moore of Kraft, Stan Thompson of The Thompson Company, and Kent Halkett of international law firm Sidley & Austin; began to advertise for a Marketing Director and store merchandisers; Store Ambassador campaign in full force; held a Southern California volunteer conference; second year of our VISTA grant; accounting software donated by SBT Company; pushed support for Congressman Tony Hall’s “hunger-free communities” initiative; $1.00 a week idea presented by a volunteer, claimed it would produce $6 million to fight hunger in our participating supermarkets; payroll donations for FOOD FOR ALL become a reality.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-g-v5OGvewSc/VNauKXPoDUI/AAAAAAAAGVw/rA0wpadvnn4/s1600-h/FFT%25252092%252520Nov%2525201%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 92 Nov 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 92 Nov 1" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-mO2lpzYS4lk/VNauLK_h80I/AAAAAAAAGV0/5Hive5VT-kE/FFT%25252092%252520Nov%2525201_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="198" height="266" /></a>  <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-NqTjPr5gSjA/VNauLjgISKI/AAAAAAAAGWA/lYY6PUljX2Q/s1600-h/FFT%25252092%252520Nov%2525203%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 92 Nov 3" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 92 Nov 3" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Cir3S52gSEo/VNauMbebbVI/AAAAAAAAGWE/qHlupTjrX1Q/FFT%25252092%252520Nov%2525203_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="202" height="267" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">February ’93—Kraft Holiday promotion netted $40,000 from “A Single Person Can Make A Difference” tag line; Kraft promotion in Northern California with Lucky and Nob Hill Foods netted $28,000; Our Saviour Center of El Monte received the 1992 Nancy Chandler $5,000 award grant; high-lighted top ten stores, included Ralphs at La Brea & 3<sup>rd</sup> in LA; received the 2<sup>nd</sup> donated vehicle from board member and husband Georgianna and George Burney (became known as the FOOD FOR ALL McBurney-mobiles); honored unsung heroes of FOOD FOR ALL Lillick & Charles law firm of San Francisco, Grey Advertising, Italia Gal for TV spots, Impulse Broadcast Systems for Ralphs radio time, Evans, Hardy & Young, Inc. for header card design and ads for promotions, Larry Del Santo, Lucky Chairman for heading up the annual appeal to the food industry, along with Byron Allumbaugh of Ralphs, Roger Hughes of Hughes Markets, and Everett Dingwell of Certified Grocers, McCracken Brooks of Minneapolis, as pro bono ad agency to develop our new logo and brand identity, Eric Lesin, Ralphs 39 Ambassador (his daughter got him involved and he later became a FFA Board member; Regional Councils formed in New England and Northern California; VISTA volunteers Tom Whalen (2<sup>nd</sup> year-Tom will become a full-time merchandiser for FOOD FOR ALL), Michelle Delehanty of San Diego, and Jill Walker-Smith (who will become a life-long friend); Holiday promotions (“Giving Tree”) ideas from volunteers; Community Bank of Redlands sells FOOD FOR ALL cards at teller windows; Waldbaum’s Foodmart sells “Santa Bucks” at their check stands; Ev Foster is honored as the “ultimate FOOD FOR ALL volunteer” for developing the computer programs for all FOOD FOR ALL functions.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-cpeVzqpezaU/VNauMwHdrSI/AAAAAAAAGWM/UV_tugSz4Z0/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525201%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 Feb 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 Feb 1" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-QzTBZJpxNOo/VNauNbMALUI/AAAAAAAAGWU/MG0yf46l414/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525201_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="202" height="261" /></a>  <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-tjQms8lXxIA/VNauN95_v7I/AAAAAAAAGWg/iqD6R44ao2w/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525204%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 Feb 4" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 Feb 4" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-FtYQdbF4FE0/VNauOWR8uEI/AAAAAAAAGWk/70vw3EFZMGE/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525204_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="201" height="262" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-HEiyEL_dKMY/VNauO4t26CI/AAAAAAAAGWs/kzv_G7k8yWg/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525205%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 Feb 5" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 Feb 5" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-gxwlukmhU14/VNauPmFqPLI/AAAAAAAAGW0/Y9tyVGRu_jI/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525205_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="200" height="265" /></a>  <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Bn-aY2FNMog/VNauQCCFiAI/AAAAAAAAGW8/7GGKg7oczp4/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525206%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 Feb 6" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 Feb 6" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-P-8UgC0gmJQ/VNauQkPPoWI/AAAAAAAAGXE/olxeI5rVToQ/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525206_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="200" height="263" /></a></font></p> <p align="center"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-8vub3nvzvts/VNauRD9l0ZI/AAAAAAAAGXM/-bMdRA7PRI4/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525208%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 Feb 8" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 Feb 8" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-fgx6grwWQwA/VNauRicuWdI/AAAAAAAAGXU/cgJ9XfP3jsY/FFT%25252093%252520Feb%2525208_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="261" height="341" /></a></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">June ’93—Pledge drive created (“Buy FOOD FOR ALL every time you shop”); new look for FOOD FOR ALL designed by McCracken Brooks, our pro bono ad agency; Nestle USA prints a million FOOD FOR ALL cards; celebrities join FOOD FOR ALL honorary campaign committee (Dixie Carter, Mel Harris of Thirty Something, Robert Sean Leonard, Julianne Phillips, Beverly Archer, Ross Becker, Bill Kinison, Steve Allen, Audrey Meadows, Vlade Divacs and A. C. Green of the LA Lakers, Swoozie Kurtz, Lesley Ann Warren, Naomi Judd; FOOD FOR ALL month declared by San Diego and Orange County Boards of Supervisors.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-0s3KK5e-60w/VNauSGv5mWI/AAAAAAAAGXc/JM6A5KWcCjo/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520June%2525201%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 June 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 June 1" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-dv0fwOL3LXs/VNauS0tmaLI/AAAAAAAAGXk/9ypctcJtrXc/FFT%25252093%252520June%2525201_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="202" height="272" /></a>  <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-NmY13KlkxSw/VNauTURJENI/AAAAAAAAGXs/zpIGKpctzFA/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520June%2525202%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 June 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 June 2" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-eqV3BscXGao/VNauT8sBG3I/AAAAAAAAGX0/D0lfgNWndow/FFT%25252093%252520June%2525202_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="200" height="270" /></a></p> <p align="center"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-shV6tt40Rcg/VNauURvdLII/AAAAAAAAGYA/4EjLftdr7ck/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520June%2525203%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 June 3" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 June 3" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-e2PGUeL8Te0/VNauU4pisaI/AAAAAAAAGYE/5MZwBTFlBO0/FFT%25252093%252520June%2525203_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="312" height="410" /></a></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">As we entered the two year period ending with the celebration of the 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the founding of FOOD FOR ALL, we were still hopeful that this “idea whose time has come” would catch the imagination of the supermarket industry and its vast array of growers, manufacturers, and suppliers. We were like the proverbial rubber tree plant who had high hopes. We had not given in to the naysayers by any means. But we knew we had a mountain to climb and an obstacle course to run. We had no idea just how difficult the climb would be, given what was going on in the world we had entered.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-uY_PnBMOeGw/VNauVdRj5KI/AAAAAAAAGYM/DXlKyqejn4k/s1600-h/CGA%252520Trade%252520Show%2525201988%252520%2525282%252529%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img title="CGA Trade Show 1988 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="CGA Trade Show 1988 (2)" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-rqDEUH8Qp3c/VNauWJHo_9I/AAAAAAAAGYU/nGM5nYVmEtE/CGA%252520Trade%252520Show%2525201988%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="201" height="143" /></a>  <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-FOJFQE2Gj9M/VNauWrbQC7I/AAAAAAAAGYg/VWKnlMNhF3k/s1600-h/Milo%252520Lacy%252520FMI%252520Show%252520%2525282%252529%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="Milo Lacy FMI Show (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Milo Lacy FMI Show (2)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-DPT5A8Y6DwM/VNauXREFMNI/AAAAAAAAGYo/NvDfLnsQEVU/Milo%252520Lacy%252520FMI%252520Show%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="197" height="143" /></a></p> <p align="center"><font size="2" face="Times New Roman"><strong>The Food Industry Trade Shows: Milan at GGA & Milo at FMI</strong></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I am reminded of a conversation I had at a food industry banquet when I attended the Chicago FMI convention and trade show, where we were invited to exhibit. I happened to sit at a table with some food industry executives. Next to me was a gentleman who identified himself as a lobbyist for a major food company. I was explaining to him why we were at this convention and our hope for expansion and adoption by the entire industry. He listened with evident interest to what I was telling him. After listening to a performance by Kenny Rogers, having had a few glasses of wine and dessert, he leaned over as we were getting ready to depart and said: “I applaud you for what you are trying to do, but I must tell you, you have no idea how many forces there are that are opposed to everything you stand for.”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It took a few more years for his comment to sink in. I have never forgotten that encounter.</font></p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-76626347638604444532015-02-05T15:58:00.001-08:002015-02-05T15:58:15.438-08:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 14: I Can’t Believe This All Happened<p>“How do you feel about receiving money from a company that sells tobacco products?”</p> <p>I had barely sat down in this meeting with the Corporate Contributions Director of Phillip Morris Companies, her assistant director, and a consultant they hired to help them on funding strategies. I took my time responding: “Truthfully, I’m not sure and will have to do some talking with our board and grassroots supporters before I can answer that question.” Compounding the decision I had to make was my own 35 year history as a smoker, and then less than 10 years as a recovering nicotine addict. This meeting would prove to be a watershed event in the FOOD FOR ALL journey. It came about because of our growing support among food manufacturing corporations, attention we were attracting among retailer supermarket companies, and the number of times we were bumping into the Food Industry Crusade Against Hunger (FICAH), which conducted a Holiday seasonal fundraiser alongside our year-round program at grocers’ check stands.</p> <p>It turns out that Phillip Morris did not only sell cigarettes. It also owned Kraft General Foods and a number of other food companies, and was attempting to re-brand itself in the public’s perception. At a second meeting, after I had done my consulting with our Boards and a sampling of our stakeholders, having received responses running from “This could be a problem with our hunger activist supporters” to “Take the money and run,” I decided that there was no way to untangle Phillip Morris from food products, at least in the mind of supermarket operators. So I said to Richard Brown, newly appointed as Director of Corporate Contributions of PM: “We are looking for substantial support over the next three years to fund our expansion nation-wide.”</p> <p>“How much would be required?” was his immediate response.</p> <p>“About two million dollars” I spat out without hesitation.</p> <p>“Well, our company is certainly capable of that—not that we are going to do it.”</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-arzTM8j7Iak/VNQDUeqEtOI/AAAAAAAAGSo/FDg12WTyze4/s1600-h/FFT-92-Nov-2-210.jpg"><img title="FFT 92 Nov 2 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 92 Nov 2 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-rAi3mvfA_gk/VNQDbENpezI/AAAAAAAAGSw/GhXC5Ok1ZAU/FFT-92-Nov-2-2_thumb6.jpg?imgmax=800" width="407" height="592" /></a></p> <p>The result of these meetings was a commitment from Phillip Morris Companies for a grant of $75,000 to fund a feasibility study, with a further promise of support, up $150,000, perhaps more, pending a positive result of the study. Not exactly what I had in mind. We already had our expansion plan. To further muck things up, much of the initial grant had to go to a consultant of their choosing to conduct the study. This would put us in a holding pattern for almost a year while Bill Leider, our newly acquired planning consultant, interviewed a smattering of food industry executives, hunger agency folk, and our stakeholders. It involved a couple of trips Bill and I made, one to Washington, DC.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-GSLZCiY1tgY/VNQDiac3qnI/AAAAAAAAGS4/LnIFWnfutHs/s1600-h/FFT%25252093%252520Dec%2525201%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 93 Dec 1 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 93 Dec 1 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--0eeTuU1JJQ/VNQDi9AewDI/AAAAAAAAGS8/iOp0xCcqKuU/FFT%25252093%252520Dec%2525201%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="413" height="307" /></a></p> <p>Bill Leider was an interesting man, short, about 5’1” I guessed. His office was in Marina del Rey, so I assumed he must have been very successful. He was active in a prominent Vietnam Veterans organization, and took me to the Vietnam Memorial while we were in Washington. As a former protester against the Vietnam War in my post-seminary days, this was an emotional experience for me, seeing all those tens of thousands of names sacrificed for us. We also stopped in at the Lincoln Memorial and as we were leaving he stopped me. “Look down at your feet,” he said. “The stone you are standing on is the one Martin Luther King was standing on for his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.” It was one of those moments my mind was stopped and I couldn’t speak. I just thanked him.</p> <p>The culmination of Bill’s work for us, following his written report, was a three-day strategic planning retreat with about 30 from our Board of Directors, representatives of our Advisory Boards, and a number of stakeholders. It was paid for by Phillip Morris, attended by Richard Brown and PM’s consultant, was facilitated by two of our old ICA colleagues, John Oyler from our Funds Distributions Advisory Board and Gordon Harper, now living in Seattle, and resulted in a five-year strategic plan for FOOD FOR ALL expanding into several more cities. There were many things I came to appreciate about our relationship with Bill Leider, and with Richard Brown. But I have to say that we could have used Phillip Morris Company’s grant money a lot more effectively had they just funded our expansion plan and gave us a grant to implement it. We were ready and events were moving fast in the food industry and in to charitable giving world.</p> <p>Even so, when I look back through the quarterly newsletters that were produced, and the annual reports for the years from August of 1991 to July 1993, I find myself in a state of awe. This period in the FOOD FOR ALL journey unfolded as though it was part of a mysterious, inexplicable happening that I was not even part of, and yet I knew I was in the midst of.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-xlUsMeZC8NE/VNQDjhjnP0I/AAAAAAAAGTI/kc0tAeBM-0E/s1600-h/FFA%25252092-93%252520Annl%252520Report%2525203%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 92-93 Annl Report 3" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 92-93 Annl Report 3" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-tUYTu5tpqAw/VNQDkb32emI/AAAAAAAAGTM/RUyZtN3mA0U/FFA%25252092-93%252520Annl%252520Report%2525203_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="400" height="561" /></a></p> <p>Our annual report for fiscal year 1992-93 indicated that we had 1200 supermarkets in four states on two coasts participating, customer contributions in this “first of a kind” program reached $850,000 and had now surpassed $4 million since its beginning in 2 supermarkets in 1986. Our grant programs were aimed at four strategies to address hunger: alleviating basic needs, fostering self-reliance, community-based organizations working on root causes of hunger, promoting grassroots educating and involvement in hunger issues. 330 grants were made totaling $523,152 aimed at domestic hunger, and $197,826 to 22 sustainable development projects, primarily in Asia, Africa, and South and Central America.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-95bJEfY_9SY/VNQDk31wH5I/AAAAAAAAGTQ/rVR8xnt1vvY/s1600-h/FFA%25252092-93%252520Annl%252520Report%2525202%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 92-93 Annl Report 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 92-93 Annl Report 2" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-TRLVj0YGj1U/VNQDlfsFhUI/AAAAAAAAGTc/SclkHzEd2KE/FFA%25252092-93%252520Annl%252520Report%2525202_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="407" height="560" /></a></p> <p>Corporate support continued to grow, now numbering 45 food companies, some of them engaging in special promotions with us and participating supermarkets. Eight companies and individuals were donating goods and services. Our Board of Directors numbered 14, with a like number on the Food Industry Advisory Board and Funds Distribution Advisory Board. All of this was staffed by 8 persons in our national office in Redlands, regional one-person offices in Southern California, Northern California, New England, and 6 VISTA (domestic Peace Corps) volunteers made possible by a grant.</p> <p>These two years leading up to FOOD FOR ALL’s tenth year are so packed with accomplishments and set-backs, elation and deflation, that I will reserve my attempt to describe and illuminate this period in the next installment of this amazing story. Don’t’ touch that dial!</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-74229253214712614302015-01-22T12:28:00.001-08:002015-01-22T12:28:53.486-08:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 13: SoCal Here We Come!<p>If I had known what lay ahead, would I have been as bold? More cautious? Perhaps more humble. In the sixth year of FOOD FOR ALL's incorporation as a "nonprofit public benefit corporation committed to ending hunger," our fiscal year 1990-91, I believed there was a window of opportunity for establishing our point-of-sale program as an ongoing partnership: supermarkets, shoppers, and anti-hunger agencies. How long this window would remain open was a big question. And how could we sustain the grassroots volunteer support systems we knew it would take? The FOOD FOR ALL approach was still new and attracting interest. The fact that we were involving customers and store employees as volunteers, reaching out to local and international anti-hunger forces to help determine how best to apply grant funds to make a real impact on hunger, and bringing diverse people and groups together to create more effective strategies for ensuring food security, made us stand out as more than just another charity doing good things. But were we going to be sustainable over time?</p> <p>FOOD FOR ALL was becoming known for its highly participative approach. Our board of directors held two annual planning retreats each year, which included staff as well as key stakeholders, utilizing the group facilitation methods (now ToP for Technology of Participation) learned from our years on the staff of the Institute of Cultural Affairs. These same methods were used in our volunteer training of Local Grant Boards each year, and the dozens of "hunger forums" held geographically. In the fall of 1990 our Funds Distribution Advisory Board sponsored a "Sharing Approaches That Work" conference, which brought together and highlighted the work of 24 nonprofits working to "break the cycle of poverty." Over 200 persons attended the conference, featuring well-known author Lisbeth Schorr as keynote speaker, and actress Beverly Archer as MC. FOOD FOR ALL was becoming "known" among a growing but still limited audience. Could we get the attention of the one audience we needed to sustain the program: the food industry, retailers, manufacturers, and distributors?</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-3fittFgCNro/VMFdcoNg3zI/AAAAAAAAGRg/Afac03rwxS4/s1600-h/FFT%25252090%252520Nov%2525204%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 90 Nov 4" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 90 Nov 4" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-pXRYlMsyTYU/VMFddJe8aGI/AAAAAAAAGRk/5AJ-67SGp3c/FFT%25252090%252520Nov%2525204_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="204" height="264" /></a>  <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-1vYEajjE_oo/VMFddilG5JI/AAAAAAAAGRs/5mOJObR17QQ/s1600-h/FFT%25252090%252520Nov%2525205%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 90 Nov 5" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 90 Nov 5" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-WjHV3fIElG4/VMFdeegATuI/AAAAAAAAGR0/VKkfm0Mq2CE/FFT%25252090%252520Nov%2525205_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="200" height="266" /></a></p> <p>The fall of 1990 kicks off our "Southern Californians Reaching Out to End Hunger" campaign, to feature endorsements of religious leaders, media promotions and public service announcements by celebrities, and a renewed appeal to supermarket chains. We received two encouraging responses, first from Ralphs Grocery Company to install the program in September, then a surprise phone call from Jack Brown: "Milan, this is Jack Brown. I think we need to talk." Stater Bros. Markets began our program with their opening of a new store in Redlands, at a press conference, arranged by our staff marketing guy, Scott Christiansen. Both Ralphs and Stater Bros. made it easy by designing, manufacturing and installing the displays. This added 250 stores within the first few months and got the campaign off to a flying start. By March of 1991 both Quality Foods International (Market Basket) and Hughes Markets were on board which added another 110 stores and surpassed the one thousandth supermarket carrying our program.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-qF7UVyK8Vag/VMFde-CROqI/AAAAAAAAGR8/veuzhsrASk0/s1600-h/FFA%252520Ralphs%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA Ralphs" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Ralphs" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Pc3c2xHHBnI/VMFdfmSWn7I/AAAAAAAAGSE/IL0fh0iLAKc/FFA%252520Ralphs_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="202" height="154" /></a>  <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-OvZZab1Liqk/VMFdf7zMVWI/AAAAAAAAGSQ/UwS72AKq50s/s1600-h/FFA%252520Stater%252520Bros%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA Stater Bros" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Stater Bros" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-t2wP5HHaNv0/VMFdg6abThI/AAAAAAAAGSY/GcUZjoCBLnA/FFA%252520Stater%252520Bros_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="201" height="156" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong>With Byron Allumbaugh of Ralphs and Jack Brown of Stater Bros.</strong></p> <p>It was a milestone year in more than one way. Lucky Stores customer contributions passed the one million dollar mark. Four executives of major supermarket chains came together to personally sign an appeal letter to their food industry counterparts for support of FOOD FOR ALL, resulting in a breakthrough in industry participation and nearly $200,000 to underwrite our expansion. We were able to make grants of $650,000 during the year to hundreds of local hunger programs and 18 international projects. Our staff grew to 13 during the year, including regional directors for each of our three regions, Southern California, Northern California, and New England. Our 13 member Board of Directors now included five from the food industry. I should probably not neglect to mention that our board finally determined that I had proved my worth as a full-time volunteer for enough years and should be paid a salary. Retroactively? Just kidding.</p> <p>So, to summarize an exciting and bold year:</p> <p>· Southern California, 731 supermarkets, $482,000, 200 plus local organizations helped</p> <p>· Northern California, 270 supermarkets, $185,500, 65 grants made</p> <p>· New England, 61 supermarkets, $80,500, 41 local grants made</p> <p>· 18 international development projects funded in Africa and South Central America totaling $151,000</p> <p>· 33 food industry companies provide financial support</p> <p>· nine celebrities provide support of the campaign including Vlade Divac of the LA Lakers, Bob Golic of the (then) LA Raiders, Jaime Harrin, the Spanish voice of the LA Dodgers</p> <p>· Inkind services provided by Grey Advertising of LA and Lillick & Charles, a San Francisco law firm.</p> <p>It was amazing who was responding to the FOOD FOR ALL message, and who was willing to help us promote it. As I look back through the annual reports and newsletters we produced during this period, I stand in awe of what grew out of this simple idea that Linda came up with back in 1985. Seems like a hundred years ago.</p> <p>It makes me wonder what could be in store for us. What will be the legacy of FOOD FOR ALL?</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-37745658074540660622014-12-27T18:43:00.001-08:002014-12-27T18:43:19.333-08:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 12: California Dreaming<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I never thought of myself as a merchandiser. In fact, I didn’t know the first thing about what went on at supermarket check stands, except you put your grocery items on the belt and the checker rang them up and put them in your bag. As I began to learn about all the products that were placed in view of customers right there at the ‘point of sale’ and tried to design a display rack that would fit in to each setting, I realized that somebody had to install them and maintain them. That is the job of the merchandiser, either store employees or someone from outside paid by a food distributor.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ujJTbYIaVHo/VJ9uKe46S-I/AAAAAAAAFm0/JLPPm1KfCOE/s1600-h/Waldbaum%252527s%25252087%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Waldbaum's 87" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Waldbaum's 87" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-mDbNHjqkv5E/VJ9uK6MzQpI/AAAAAAAAFm4/vCa7t3BnhdQ/Waldbaum%252527s%25252087_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="245" /></a></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I also discovered that the space at the check stand is the most expensive and sought after spot in a supermarket and we were asking retailers to give us that real estate gratis. But we had no budget to hire people to do the installation and maintenance of our displays. And I soon discovered that store employees had lots of tasks to occupy their attention. It was not going to be realistic to expect them to take care of re-stocking our FOOD FOR ALL cards. We had to devise a way to support our program. This was my job and apparently no one else was going to take it on--the ultimate on-the-job training program.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ueeGNgC37tE/VJ9uLFHsZbI/AAAAAAAAFnE/jN0Ng6lX4jg/s1600-h/FFA%252520Office%252520MH%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA Office MH" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Office MH" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ZHJXz116fwQ/VJ9uL-G3JYI/AAAAAAAAFnI/Iz8ET5I7MSk/FFA%252520Office%252520MH_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="300" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Not that I was unwilling. I had designed the very first displays, clunky heavy metal jobs with adjustable brackets to fit on top of the magazine and candy racks. The cards had dye cut oblong holes that hung on removable metal pegs. The racks cost us about seven dollars each, which is fine when we had about a dozen supermarkets involved. But now we were faced with supplying a few hundred supermarkets with an average of 10 check stands. Fortunately I had acquired some friends in the industry who helped design some more appropriate racks which were attractive and also cheaper. And we were hoping that retailers would step up and manufacture their own racks to hold our cards. I don’t remember who came up with the ingenious idea to make a simple white-coated wire with three pegs that could be attached with two metal screws to a magazine rack, but he was a genius in my book. Then the cards only needed a small hole drilled in the top center of the cards and they would hang just as easily as our old cards. That meant we had to have all new cards printed. We hadn’t paid Lucky Stores for the last million cards that their billing department kept sending us invoices for.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">With this as our credential, we charged ahead with expansion plans. What was in our favor, at the beginning of our fiscal year 1989-90, was a phenomenon that would impact our future, for good and ill, called “mergers and acquisitions,” a trend in the food industry that would be accelerating in the coming years. Lucky Stores was in the process of being acquired by American Stores, Inc., based in Salt Lake City, which had already acquired the Alpha Beta chain in Southern California. We approached Alpha Beta at the very beginning of our test program and were placed “under consideration,” as we were by other retailers, including Stater Bros., Vons, Ralphs, Albertson’s, etc. Now, due to some unfathomable twist of fate, we got the go-ahead from Alpha Beta to install FOOD FOR ALL in their 160 stores in Southern California, followed soon after by Lucky Stores Northern California Division’s 153 supermarkets (we had actually clandestinely got their 7 San Leandro stores to test the program in preparation for this expansion).</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I already mentioned that I was not a merchandiser. So I wondered, “How were we to install our displays in another 400 supermarkets by Christmas 1989?” To our good fortune, Mike Mathers, an Alpha Beta executive, stepped up to the plate and arranged for the printing of a million FOOD FOR ALL cards, manufacturing of racks, and installing displays in all of their stores. Not that we were off the hook. We had to arrange for the packing of 160 boxes with all the displays and cards to be picked up and distributed to their stores. So we just recruited about 20 volunteers, asked my Mentone Congregational Church if we could use the church building, and one Saturday packed up all the boxes to be picked up and delivered. We were now operational in another 160 stores.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-SwJkPnVZSz4/VJ9uMZSJnRI/AAAAAAAAFnQ/ZaLcUYr_VCA/s1600-h/FFT%25252089%252520Aug%2525201%252520%2525282%252529%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 89 Aug 1 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 89 Aug 1 (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-zJYoIO9-zUc/VJ9uMpOCy9I/AAAAAAAAFnY/J5e0JJx9-xc/FFT%25252089%252520Aug%2525201%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="194" height="535" /></a>   <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Kc96r7jQz58/VJ9uNOANCzI/AAAAAAAAFng/eVBzqpdU4V0/s1600-h/Lucky%252520North%252520Adopts%252520FFA%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Lucky North Adopts FFA" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Lucky North Adopts FFA" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-iuCOYjvW3Nk/VJ9uNkvYpLI/AAAAAAAAFno/VN3jOXg96Z0/Lucky%252520North%252520Adopts%252520FFA_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="201" height="537" /></a></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The installation of the program in 153 northern California Lucky Stores was not so easy. As I mentioned earlier, I was not a merchandiser. Nevertheless, I found myself in my 1970 VW bus, loaded with displays and FOOD FOR ALL cards, driving the I-5 to northern California, personally installing displays and FOOD FOR ALL cards in Lucky Stores, sometimes in the middle of the night (many supermarkets were open 24 hours). I loved it! San Francisco was my “home turf.” I “left my heart in San Francisco” many years before. My VW bus made it through many merchandising trips during this and the coming years. I was still a full time volunteer, but I had no complaints.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-dPsOqGVfBJA/VJ9uN5sB6-I/AAAAAAAAFnw/fUY6079xcYA/s1600-h/1970%252520volkswagen%252520camper%252520bus%2525202%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img title="1970%20volkswagen%20camper%20bus%202" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="1970%20volkswagen%20camper%20bus%202" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Y8phi1e_T_I/VJ9uOexXdII/AAAAAAAAFn8/WP8Xn-qmick/1970%252520volkswagen%252520camper%252520bus%2525202_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="280" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Don’t get me wrong. While I was having all this fun, our people were working too. Linda was writing grants and recruiting and training volunteers to sustain the grassroots programs that undergirded our program expansion. Diane Adams, our Coordinator of Volunteers was pulling off a World Food Day event involving 2000 volunteers at our participating supermarkets. Pepsi and Louis Rich supported the promotion, as well as several California radio stations. In New England, Walbaum’s Foot Mart continued its support by giving all proceeds from their annual food show to FOOD FOR ALL, and involving their employees in promotions. We were able to keep the program alive with a part time staff person and donated office space in Hartford.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">By the end of our fiscal year in June of 1989-90, 650 supermarkets were participating; grants to anti-hunger agencies surpassed $1 million; there were 26 local grant committees; hundreds of local organizations, and 14 international projects were grant recipients. Ten Consensus for Action Think Tanks on Hunger were held (of the 40 over three years), resulting in new strategies to address hunger.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Five food manufacturing companies had come forward in support of the FOOD FOR ALL program. Most notable of these was Hunt-Wesson, due to the connection with Frank Quevedo, Director of Corporate Relations, who would become a significant member of our Board of Directors and a good friend in the coming years.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">At the fourth annual meeting of FOOD FOR ALL, attended by 35 persons, the stage was set for a major effort to reach out to the food industry and the public. This was followed by a January 1990 planning retreat of our Board of Directors and advisors, at which a campaign was announced to extend FOOD FOR ALL to all retailers in Southern California. This was to include the media, celebrity endorsements, and grassroots education.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">During the fiscal year 1989-90, our Board of Directors was increased to 12 members, including Beverly Archer, actress, and John Benner, Senior Vice President of Lucky Stores, who is to become a trusted friend and eventually Chairman of our Board of Directors. Others from the food industry are Lynda Trelut of Nob Hill Foods, Bill Christy of Certified Grocers, Dan Lescoe of Waldbaum’s Food Mart, and Bob Inadomi of JonSons Markets. Neill Richards, an original supporter and member of our Funds Distribution Advisory Board, as well as Director of Hunger Programs of the United Church of Christ, also joined our Board.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The Food Industry Advisory Board of nine added Frank Quevedo of Hunt-Wesson; our Funds Distribution Advisory Board grew to 13, and the Public Relations Advisory board had 11 members.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">FOOD FOR ALL staff held at eight (again, plus yours truly, still a full-time volunteer). Our most notable staff addition during the year was Lisa Dewey, a young and enthusiastic woman who came to us because she wanted to make a difference. Lisa was hired to coordinate our newly conceived supermarket employee involvement program and Southern California store expansion effort. This was one of those initiatives that took longer to bear fruit than we anticipated. Lisa left us after a year to go on to a successful teaching career, but many of the connections she made produced results in the form of supermarket employees who became Store Ambassadors and chairs of Local Grant committees for several years to come. We remain close friends with Lisa and her husband to this day. This has been one of the side benefits of the thirteen years of our involvement in FOOD FOR ALL, that we have maintained these friendships through the years.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-EGfydjjQDj8/VJ9uO7se_II/AAAAAAAAFoA/MawWTcBX8Z0/s1600-h/Lisa%252520Dewey%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img title="Lisa Dewey" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Lisa Dewey" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-fBOUpXbLb8k/VJ9uPRWu0vI/AAAAAAAAFoI/8OVi51WRfao/Lisa%252520Dewey_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="402" height="735" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">So a good deal of my time during our fiscal year 1989-90 was devoted to learning the merchandising trade: many hours, days, and weeks on the road in my trusty 1970 VW bus, sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes in the middle of a rainstorm, once in the middle of a snowstorm, driving from supermarket to supermarket, with just my Thomas Bros. map book (we did not have GPS or cell phones). Arriving at a store, checking in with the store manager, working around the checkers and customers, beginning to install a display only to be told “you need to move to another aisle—we need to open this lane.” This was all part of the on-the-job training experience of a FOOD FOR ALL merchandiser.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-PHR5saYDXIU/VJ9uPp1TluI/AAAAAAAAFoQ/TjH6CcFBfuA/s1600-h/FFA%252520MH%252520Merch%252520%2525283%252529%25255B9%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA MH Merch (3)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA MH Merch (3)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-3xt22nfdIqI/VJ9uQNoqZHI/AAAAAAAAFoY/zquchZMM35Q/FFA%252520MH%252520Merch%252520%2525283%252529_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="298" /></a></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The learning did not stop with installation and maintenance. When one of our store ambassadors would call with a frantic “All the FOOD FOR ALL displays are gone,” we discovered that supermarket chains had a schedule of total replacement of front ends. When this happened, store managers were notified, a crew arrived in the night and replaced everything—except the FOOD FOR ALL displays. After a couple of years we became adept at keeping in closer touch with store operations personnel, to try to get there in time to salvage our precious donation cards.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-KToOynncgkU/VJ9uQphqGnI/AAAAAAAAFok/7fLmBgYdI8E/s1600-h/FFA%252520MH%252520Merch%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA MH Merch (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA MH Merch (2)" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-F6lHTezoK3E/VJ9uRKEPq-I/AAAAAAAAFos/zhDUw7pfJv4/FFA%252520MH%252520Merch%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="405" height="335" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Another lesson we learned early in the year: The Alpha Beta rack designer came up with his own idea—a ‘spinner’ rack with our cards hanging on rotating hooks. The trouble was that many stores’ check stands were very close to the front entrances with sliding doors. On windy days we would often find our cards ‘spinning’ right off the racks. Then employees would solve the problem by wrapping a plastic grocery bag around the cards. Problem solved—theirs, not ours.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Thankfully, while I was learning to be a merchandiser, I had people who were continuing to build the support systems for the next phase of FOOD FOR ALL. Stay tuned.</font></p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-29839831565679324182014-12-12T14:43:00.001-08:002014-12-12T14:43:31.864-08:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 11: Going North<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We were young. We were bold. We were enthusiastic.  We were filled with conviction that the world needed FOOD FOR ALL. We were also perhaps a little crazy. But slowing down was not in our DNA. I believe it was at a California Grocers Convention in the Spring of 1988 that I met Lynda Trelut, this attractive young woman with the silvery hair, who happened to be Vice President of CGA and also VP of marketing in her family-owned supermarket chain, Nob Hill Foods, based in Gilroy, the “garlic capital of the world.” Lynda agreed to join our Food Industry Advisory Board and also to convince her brother, the President of Nob Hill, and the rest of her family, to take on this upstart anti-hunger program. This put us in 22 more stores scattered throughout the east and south San Francisco Bay Area, and allowed us to pick up eight more independents in the same region.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-QDncSzp20M4/VItvVALORpI/AAAAAAAAFho/Zk7SCHYZQO0/s1600-h/FFA-Farewell-6-22.jpg"><img title="FFA Farewell 6 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Farewell 6 (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-EU_K-S4Gwc0/VItvVt_erPI/AAAAAAAAFhs/nBpHg47ZFsY/FFA-Farewell-6-2_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="157" height="244" /></a>   <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-1wKMPq7Uy10/VItvWMpVtlI/AAAAAAAAFh0/u-BNjSkxO6E/s1600-h/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-9-33.jpg"><img title="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 9 (3)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 9 (3)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Jta_O_WZRHY/VItvWhdc5eI/AAAAAAAAFh8/QFIM4T7vlsw/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-9-3_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="242" height="232" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Fifty-three new supermarkets were added to the FOOD FOR ALL family of retail stores committed to making an impact on hunger during our fiscal year 1988-89. In addition to Nob Hill Foods, Lucky added their 16 Las Vegas stores and we installed displays in 15 more independent markets. This made possible grants of over $392,000 to several hundred more local and international programs to fight hunger during the year.</font></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-pN991qWpe-k/VItvXK7t2zI/AAAAAAAAFiI/LTXB8VR_vLI/s1600-h/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-12-24.jpg"><img title="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 12 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 12 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-WMYWpnVT3DU/VItvXrrMDbI/AAAAAAAAFiM/I5lfmACj5xA/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-12-2_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="209" /></a>   <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-OK07EZH8hP0/VItvX0r_kUI/AAAAAAAAFiU/J39oG6hR-HE/s1600-h/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-11-23.jpg"><img title="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 11 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 11 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-sr7EWesIr3I/VItvYaIppHI/AAAAAAAAFic/iYgecECI8e0/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-11-2_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="235" height="305" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Promotional help from Nob Hill Foods at all of their stores as they introduced FOOD FOR ALL to their employees and customers through a matching contributions promotion in a kickoff week of November 1988, along with Lucky Stores teaming with KABC Los Angeles at Thanksgiving and KXTZ Las Vegas for a February Nevada kickoff, and Waldbaum’s Food Mart’s contest for employees and donating all the proceeds from their annual Hartford food and nutrition show in March ’89, kept FOOD FOR ALL in front of customers’ minds and hearts, and donations continuing to grow for local and international anti-hunger efforts.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-FR-GXHrLWp8/VItvYpzNahI/AAAAAAAAFio/DssK0FgydWs/s1600-h/NoCal-Nob-Hill-Foods3.jpg"><img title="NoCal Nob Hill Foods" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="NoCal Nob Hill Foods" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-eHeJ7BJdohI/VItvZLx1lgI/AAAAAAAAFis/1tqGdJvZBPk/NoCal-Nob-Hill-Foods_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="179" height="141" /></a>   <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-RZiORMvBED8/VItvZ7GDyAI/AAAAAAAAFi0/ENt8tCzDwtU/s1600-h/Waldbaums-Food-Show3.jpg"><img title="Waldbaum's Food Show" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Waldbaum's Food Show" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-9z9og1bbKHw/VItvaa4BZlI/AAAAAAAAFi8/uutVzwENtxk/Waldbaums-Food-Show_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="220" height="144" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The Food Industry Advisory Board added several new members. In addition to Bill Christy of Certified Grocers, Lynda Trelut of Nob Hill Foods, and Dan Lescoe of Waldbaum’s Food Mart, Bill Yingling, President of Lucky Stores Southern California agreed to join. Bill was the guy who almost kicked us out of their stores after the initial two-store test in 1986, and now became one of our enthusiastic cheerleaders.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Another important addition to our structure was the formation of a Public Relations Advisory Board, made up of persons from advertising, food industry marketing people, a handful of politicians, and media folk. This allowed us to go to busy people for help when we needed it, but not have to ask them to serve on another time-consuming board. Karen Sturgeon and Bonnie Lewis of Lucky, Mayors Carole Beswick of Redlands and Susan Hammer of San Jose, Congressmen Jerry Lewis and George Brown, and Beverly Archer, an actress who had become acquainted with FOOD FOR ALL at the South Pasadena store where she shopped, and joined our San Gabriel Valley Local Grant board. Beverly will be familiar to those who watched the syndicated Mama’s Family TV show, and as the tough sergeant “Gunny” on Major Dad. She will go on to serve on our Board of Directors for a couple of years and do a TV spot for us, as well as convince Vicky Lawrence, Mama of Mama’s Family, to sit for a spot promoting FOOD FOR ALL . . .</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-zYSWkqrK6xo/VItva3kBQUI/AAAAAAAAFjI/WUUM-d3oc4g/s1600-h/Beverly%252520Archer%252520TV%252520Spot.jpg"><img title="Beverly Archer TV Spot" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Beverly Archer TV Spot" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-l8d1zT0ViOo/VItvbfKqZZI/AAAAAAAAFjM/B56iWbJda4g/Beverly%252520Archer%252520TV%252520Spot_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="405" height="292" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="2" face="Times New Roman">Beverly Archer with TV production crew and FOOD FOR ALL founders and Scott Christiansen, FFA PR Director 2nd from right.</font></strong></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Our staff grew to eight during this fiscal year (plus yours truly as full-time volunteer), and included a much needed Director of Funds Distribution, as well as a New England Regional Director. Sing Baker, a highly skilled local housewife with a degree in Social Work, who wanted to get back into the workforce, took on our grant programs with a loving dedication which left an indelible mark on our young organization. Diane Adams moved from volunteer to staff as Coordinator of Volunteers.</font> </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-M4ue6blNPx0/VItvb7TBBkI/AAAAAAAAFjU/F2EaIcEz7nI/s1600-h/FFT%25252089%252520Aug%2525205%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 89 Aug 5 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 89 Aug 5 (2)" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-KL8xQOEedzg/VItvcRUeF-I/AAAAAAAAFjc/vq7h2Gp-e3Y/FFT%25252089%252520Aug%2525205%252520%2525282%252529_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="156" height="184" /></a>      <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-C0tGBk3nsRw/VItvczsVSKI/AAAAAAAAFjo/41418V7oUfU/s1600-h/Sing%252520Baker%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Sing Baker" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Sing Baker" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-2q61b6fqsl4/VItvdWuOxLI/AAAAAAAAFjs/VcfLx8O09mc/Sing%252520Baker_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="231" height="179" /></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Of all the challenges of growing an organization, none proved more difficult than growing the staff. I consider us lucky in that respect. It is so easy to make poor hiring decisions and it is so clear in hindsight that you have made them. We were fortunate that the right people appeared, it seemed, at just the right time. I remember all the wrong decisions as for the most part mine. Not that things could have worked out differently than they did, but acting more quickly might have lessened some of the self-inflicted pain we were to endure. But that is for a later chapter of the FOOD FOR ALL story. For now I will share only the lesson learned by quoting some management guru whose name escapes me: “Hire slowly and fire quickly!”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It was during the fiscal year ending with June 1989 that FOOD FOR ALL established its identity as a force for bringing together new resources and directing them toward addressing causes as well as effects of hunger. Here is the mission statement that guided us:</font></p> <p><i>“FOOD FOR ALL is a nonprofit public benefit corporation committed to ending hunger. Its primary purposes are to generate and distribute new resources for effective programs addressing the crises, the effects, and the causes of hunger; increase grassroots involvement in efforts to end hunger; and encourage new strategies to empower the movement toward a hunger-free society and world.”</i></p> <p><em><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-gcjGmvm_UUM/VItvd8lqiLI/AAAAAAAAFj0/bNEWZ63xBbE/s1600-h/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-5-27.jpg"><img title="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 5 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 5 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-f-zdyan5JS8/VItveBHy6OI/AAAAAAAAFj8/v4HA29iDabI/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-5-2_thumb5.jpg?imgmax=800" width="209" height="273" /></a>   <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-fbB5QEh1Rhs/VItvevCxh1I/AAAAAAAAFkE/DsCcxPT-0nc/s1600-h/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-6-24.jpg"><img title="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 6 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 6 (2)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Cy8sy6zGnAI/VItvfKlRXOI/AAAAAAAAFkM/d72aUmPd43s/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-6-2_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="186" height="274" /></a></em></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We were positioning FOOD FOR ALL to gain the support needed from the food industry to make buying ‘food for all’ a part of everyone’s food buying habit. Yet to date only three food manufacturers had stepped forward in support of expanding the program. In the President’s Message from our annual report I tried to make the case:</font></p> <p><em>“Almost everyone agrees that FOOD FOR ALL’s potential is unlimited, but we have a huge job ahead of us in developing greater public awareness and in enlisting the support of the entire food industry. This is going to take every one of us going out of our way to talk to friends and neighbors, writing letters, speaking to groups, and committing ourselves to buying a FOOD FOR ALL card every week! And most importantly, we must all be thinking together about what is needed in this country to ultimately eradicate hunger.”</em></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We were growing in many ways during 1988-89. It was in large part the result of careful and thoughtful planning, as well as the good fortune to be riding a wave of public interest in the issue of hunger. Linda and I having spent 10 years on the staff of the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA), where we learned most of the methods for building a grassroots volunteer organization, gave us the tools and the courage we needed to even think about growing FOOD FOR ALL into a nationwide program. Georgianna McBurney, who had been a volunteer with the ICA during the same years as we were on staff, headed up our Funds Distribution Advisory Board and helped develop our Think Tanks on Hunger. John Oyler, a long-time staff member of ICA who had worked for many years in international village development projects, joined that board and gave many hours, along with other ICA staff members, in facilitating these Think Tanks, which were part of what came to be known as our Consensus for Action program.</font> </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Qw9GtOzh1wQ/VItvfgHV6VI/AAAAAAAAFkY/_NcV1j0Iw24/s1600-h/FFA-FDAB-27.jpg"><img title="FFA FDAB-2" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA FDAB-2" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-XqoXRzMNUK4/VItvgc0RKWI/AAAAAAAAFkc/OmE0N7qcwcs/FFA-FDAB-2_thumb5.jpg?imgmax=800" width="228" height="190" /></a>   <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-JmHz96sWMJ8/VItvgvZYUJI/AAAAAAAAFko/5PILoLjnz_8/s1600-h/FFT-89-Aug-4-26.jpg"><img title="FFT 89 Aug 4 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 89 Aug 4 (2)" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-SEJGVNP6_6s/VItvhHOvmzI/AAAAAAAAFks/TKMpr1SpWz8/FFT-89-Aug-4-2_thumb4.jpg?imgmax=800" width="171" height="191" /></a></p> <p><strong><font size="2" face="Times New Roman">Above Left: Georgianna McBurney on lower right with Funds Distribution Advisory Board members Darryl Brock, Mike Hayes, Gianna Hochstein, Neill Richards, Aaron Zerah, Jean Faria Walker.  Above Right: John Oyler of the ICA facilitating a Think Tank on hunger. <br /></font></strong></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">During this fiscal year 10 of these events were held in Southern California and a number of volunteers were trained in methods to build consensus so that they could be more effective in helping develop long range strategies for addressing the hunger issue. By the end of June 1989 there were thirteen active local grant boards in Southern California, three in Northern California, and three in New England.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">An important component of our volunteer program was the engagement of customers and store employees in educating and motivating the food buying public. Our “Adopt-A-Store” program and Speakers’ Bureau brought many more individuals to an awareness that they could do something about a big problem just by remembering to include a FOOD FOR ALL card with their grocery purchases.</font> </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ViGff8c6Qi8/VItvhhIZ-UI/AAAAAAAAFk0/py_Cdbc8awA/s1600-h/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-13-27.jpg"><img title="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 13 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 13 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-fMqKECE_YTk/VItvhzt3wbI/AAAAAAAAFk8/Ph5HvAuG_Xs/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-13-2_thumb3.jpg?imgmax=800" width="215" height="235" /></a>   <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-LfI37xXDZvw/VItviTYwm-I/AAAAAAAAFlI/TyiGyV_9jR8/s1600-h/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-10-34.jpg"><img title="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 10 (3)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 10 (3)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-SghFXzBhBDM/VItvi_p65GI/AAAAAAAAFlM/sYfBUI2smIU/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-10-3_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="185" height="237" /></a></p> <p align="center"><font size="2" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Helen Anderson, an early FOOD FOR ALL Adopter</strong></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">A simple presentation was developed that could be given at churches, service clubs and other group settings, composed of a set of boxes that showed what made for living a productive life. The bottom tier of boxes were food, shelter, transportation, and a job. The presenter then demonstrated what happens when one or more of the boxes was removed. If a job is lost, for example, soon it may be more difficult to pay for housing. This may also mean health insurance goes away. One serious illness may take away the family’s ability to pay for housing. Then the family can no longer afford to buy food. It didn’t take long for group members to see that the issue of hunger was much more complex than they had thought, and how anyone could find themselves in the same situation.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-FlRBicgs2Og/VItvjDLFBgI/AAAAAAAAFlY/e9byCAelaew/s1600-h/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-8-210.jpg"><img title="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 8 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 8 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-YE3pWdZsGQA/VItvjxVDndI/AAAAAAAAFlc/zLPJKex1R6s/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-8-2_thumb6.jpg?imgmax=800" width="279" height="337" /></a>   <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-fA2ytlfGdrA/VItvkI4apjI/AAAAAAAAFlk/nVawVsY4n8M/s1600-h/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-7-26.jpg"><img title="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 7 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 88-89 Annl Report 7 (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-PSNCyo9CqJI/VItvkj6KAYI/AAAAAAAAFls/MfKgXCn_Nvs/FFA-88-89-Annl-Report-7-2_thumb4.jpg?imgmax=800" width="116" height="338" /></a></p> <p align="center"><font size="2" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Diane Adams, Coordinator of Volunteers, Making a Presentation</strong></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">FOOD FOR ALL was poised for a major expansion in California by the fall of 1989. All of our internal support structures were in place. We were gaining momentum. Shoppers were responding. There was increasing interest among retail grocers. Our small but growing army of volunteers, now numbering in the hundreds, gave us confidence. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We still had to break through the wall of resistance of the massive and complex food industry, which had not as yet recognized the value of a united effort to address hunger, nor were we certain it ever would. The competition for profits was so fierce that it was difficult to even get the attention of the decision-makers in these big corporations.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But we were not going to give up without the old college try.</font></p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-48691294520973795712014-11-22T10:56:00.001-08:002014-11-22T10:56:25.584-08:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 10: A Mixed Bag of Blessing<p>Growing FOOD FOR ALL in the food industry had a big learning curve. We installed a point-of-sale program in 200 supermarkets on the basis of having UPC (bar) codes on our cards and we did not yet have permission to print them on our cards. Retailers had to assign a cash register number code and have the checkout people tear off a stub for each transaction and turn these in to their bookkeeper each day. The bookkeepers in turn would have to count the stubs and reconcile them with the day’s cash register receipts, after which they were sent in to the accounting department so that a check could be cut and sent to the FOOD FOR ALL office in Redlands. We then had to track the receipts from each store so we could make grants to local hunger programs located in the area where the donations originated. This was the way we operated the FOOD FOR ALL program for the first year and a half. We were lucky that Lucky Stores was willing to stay with us for the first couple of years, as well as Waldbaum’s Food Mart in New England and the growing number of independent markets we were able to attract.</p> <p>Lucky’s involvement was primarily thanks to Dick Fredericksen’s support and Nancy Chandler’s championing of our cause. Nancy, Director of Public Relations, was an elegant and classy lady who was in our corner from the beginning. She had a little cubicle of an office in Lucky’s Buena Park headquarters, where I was always welcomed warmly. Nancy never sought the limelight for herself, but saw her role as that of making sure the people she worked for got the credit for every one of her successes. She was the go-to person at Lucky. I felt fortunate to have Nancy take me under her wing. Which is why I still remember vividly that day in November of 1988, not long after leaving Nancy’s office, getting a call from Dick Fredericksen’s office, informing me that Nancy, on her way home from work, had a heart attack as she pulled her car to the side of the street, and died within a few hours.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-3pi_d-G9xKI/VHDcPHhBFBI/AAAAAAAAFf8/lkJtc_Gg9PI/s1600-h/Nancy%252520Chandler%252520Portrait%252520Photo%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Nancy Chandler Portrait Photo" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Nancy Chandler Portrait Photo" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-VC5yf1fZH1c/VHDcPxdS7ZI/AAAAAAAAFgE/G5N60xv6fAc/Nancy%252520Chandler%252520Portrait%252520Photo_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="406" height="518" /></a></p> <p><strong>Photo of Nancy Chandler Portrait Painted by her Husband, David</strong></p> <p>It took us some time to get back on track. There were several days and weeks of recovering from the shock. Nancy was a beloved member of the Lucky Stores family. Linda and I attended her memorial service and made further acquaintance with her family. We had already met Nancy’s son Bill, who was Mayor Tom Bradley’s Press Secretary, and who would later take the same position on Senator Diane Feinstein’s staff. Her husband David and daughter Deborah would also become close to us as we established an annual Nancy Chandler Memorial Grant, funded by Lucky Stores, to be given to an outstanding charity making an impact on hunger.</p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ZtPOqhaMkw8/VHDcQbZQhDI/AAAAAAAAFgM/Qybxy_af764/s1600-h/David%252520and%252520Deborah%252520Chandler%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="David and Deborah Chandler" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="David and Deborah Chandler" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-s3d8eQDIDVs/VHDcREVi00I/AAAAAAAAFgU/DNfqkeI5xGQ/David%252520and%252520Deborah%252520Chandler_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="189" height="173" /></a>  <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-8Q0VqhZYc-A/VHDcSOJi3jI/AAAAAAAAFgc/zJHGiVe6eFE/s1600-h/FFT%25252090%252520Feb%2525201%25255B10%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFT 90 Feb 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFT 90 Feb 1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-cLuVEaZSr0I/VHDcSplTRqI/AAAAAAAAFgg/EopxjALXBbY/FFT%25252090%252520Feb%2525201_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="211" height="294" /></a></p> <p align="left"><strong>David and Deborah Chandler and the First Nancy Chandler Grant</strong></p> <p>We were fortunate that Nancy had somehow established us FOOD FOR ALL folk as part of the “Lucky family,” so that Karen Sturgeon, Vice President of Advertising and Nancy’s boss, took us on, if not with total enthusiasm, at least with her assurance of ongoing support. It also helped that we were at the right place at the right time in assisting Karen to find the right person to fill Nancy’s position. We had met Bonnie Lewis, public relations person for Safeway Stores, early on in our presentation of the FOOD FOR ALL idea. When Safeway left the Southern California market, Bonnie was out of a job. I suggested to her one day that she apply for the job at Lucky. She did and got the job. And while no one could replace Nancy, Bonnie became a good friend and assisted us on many occasions with promotions and running interference when we needed her help.</p> <p>Our UPC bar code dilemna was solved for us by a chance encounter with an independent supermarket owner at a food industry trade show in Long Beach. Our food industry advisors got us invitations to a number of conventions as exhibitors, free of charge, from the early years onward. California Grocers Association sponsored a big event each year that alternated between Reno and Las Vegas. The Food Marketing Institute, the lobbying arm of the grocers, held a huge trade show at the Chicago Convention Center annually. Bill Christy, President of Certified Grocers of California, destined to become an important member of our Board of Directors, got us a place in their annual show at the Long Beach Convention Center. These shows were instrumental in getting us exposure, although we didn’t actually get any signups on the spot. That required making a pitch to each one, whether a large chain or a one-store operator.</p> <p>Ray Ziff, whose father owned a store in Los Angeles, came by our booth and as we chatted I told him of the difficulty we were having getting the UPC Code Council to allow us to use the bar codes on our donation cards. He looked at me a little quizzically and said, “That’s no problem. I can tell you exactly how to get them. Why don’t you ask Certified Grocers for them?” The thought had not crossed my mind. How come none of our food industry advisors had been able to advise us on this issue? I asked Bill Christy for an appointment and told him what Ray Ziff had told me, and posed the question “Could Certified loan us the numbers we need?” Bill got an ‘I’m not sure’ look and picked up his phone to call his IT department head. When he hung up the phone we had our UPC codes, on permanent loan from Certified Grocers. Problem solved!</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-fcp0V61wBP8/VHDcTMZc9CI/AAAAAAAAFgo/5bAJDZI6_wY/s1600-h/Untitled-42%252520%2525282%252529%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Untitled-42 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Untitled-42 (2)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-8hCKs4B_e-A/VHDcTytxCAI/AAAAAAAAFgw/dDc5W12Qklg/Untitled-42%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="401" height="497" /></a></p> <p>Well, not quite. We had about a million donation cards distributed in more than 200 locations at an average of ten check stands each. We still didn’t have the funds to just print all new cards. So we devised the plan. Lucky Stores would, on one day, have each store manager package all of our donation cards and have them trucked in to the Buena Park warehouse. I would drive our 1970 VW bus down and pick them up, bring them back to Redlands, and have volunteers transfer from rolls of printed bar codes, fifty cent, dollar, and five dollar, to the bottom of the cards, one by one. Good plan. Except I had not anticipated exactly how these million cards would be packaged. Naturally, they showed up in plastic grocery bags at the warehouse, and were dumped all together into a huge dumpster. I don’t remember how many trips I made just to transport them to our office, all in a two-day period. You can also imagine that a few of the cards were in no shape to go back to the stores. Nonetheless, our handful of volunteers, working hour after hour, had all the cards correctly bar-coded within a couple of days. And FOOD FOR ALL was back in business. I can’t remember exactly how we handled the rest of the stores, but eventually donation cards were being scanned at all of our markets.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-odyy05zq-4c/VHDcUdRSBVI/AAAAAAAAFg4/UALHZqOxsZU/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Dollar%252520card%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL Dollar card" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL Dollar card" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-hDU7SFdOibg/VHDcVAo04xI/AAAAAAAAFhE/v7VNHTL-IVM/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520Dollar%252520card_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="203" height="330" /></a>   <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Le9XHoIAMeg/VHDcVhRqMxI/AAAAAAAAFhM/FYQO_6K26jA/s1600-h/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520bar-coded%252520card%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="FOOD FOR ALL bar-coded card" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FOOD FOR ALL bar-coded card" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ONpB7QM4PyQ/VHDcWEMsgGI/AAAAAAAAFhQ/kKho3OH8l1M/FOOD%252520FOR%252520ALL%252520bar-coded%252520card_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="197" height="331" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong>Now it was time to go back to expanding into more supermarkets.</strong></p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-19978117522745558212014-11-11T10:38:00.001-08:002014-11-11T10:38:59.376-08:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 9: Building the Infrastructure<p>By the end of 1987 the FOOD FOR ALL "supermarket customer contribution program to help end hunger" (one of my elevator speeches to try to describe what we were about) had indeed been launched in 36 Waldbaum's Food Mart stores in Connecticut and was averaging over two thousand dollars a week, thanks to the enthusiastic reception by the company's staff, store employees and customers. I don't remember how many trips I made to Hartford during the months from November to the summer of 1988, but we were able to grant almost $25,000 to seventeen local anti-hunger agencies by the end of our fiscal year. This in addition to the 120 local grants totaling $169,000 throughout southern California, and $65,000 to 10 international development programs.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Cmx0z15vIwI/VGJXlpZdrfI/AAAAAAAAFeg/e4hOOJh34zs/s1600-h/Waldbaum%252527s%25252087%2525204%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Waldbaum's 87 4 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Waldbaum's 87 4 (2)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-VxETJbXGiiE/VGJXmzBfAZI/AAAAAAAAFeo/5VQv3hMbZgU/Waldbaum%252527s%25252087%2525204%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="169" height="170" /></a>  <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-_EFuhJJUIPQ/VGJXoe623RI/AAAAAAAAFew/enhxei8yXOY/s1600-h/Waldbaum%252527s%25252087%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Waldbaum's 87" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Waldbaum's 87" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ukc9zQK2hAw/VGJXpuiZvNI/AAAAAAAAFe4/MPcCi1aoz2A/Waldbaum%252527s%25252087_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="232" height="140" /></a></p> <p>How did we do it? I had to go back to our published annual report for fiscal year 1987-88 and was filled with humble pride at the unexplainable happening that was revealed there. In 238 participating supermarkets, customers had contributed $367,466. We had received more than $125,000 in seed grants from 16 foundations, corporations and religious organizations, as well as donated services equal to nearly $20,000. I was under no illusion that this was due in any significant measure to what a smart guy I was, or how many long hours I had put in to get this project moving. I did note, however, that one of the corporate contributions was a $5,000 grant from the General Mills Foundation, which I am willing to acknowledge as partly a result of my visit.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-nIvUPM0Uvxw/VGJXq5oZmmI/AAAAAAAAFfA/Nr_UEjoAcEw/s1600-h/Untitled-100%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img title="Untitled-100" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Untitled-100" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--pWgbs8ebtA/VGJXr2wcIcI/AAAAAAAAFfI/SBK_46Gzj48/Untitled-100_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="201" height="299" /></a>  <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-yHssxcGnHpw/VGJXs9Z1fxI/AAAAAAAAFfQ/d_h6iMMLao0/s1600-h/Untitled-102%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="Untitled-102" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Untitled-102" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-jLc2rsR4lsg/VGJXt0fm3XI/AAAAAAAAFfY/u66qP5MKdUA/Untitled-102_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="201" height="297" /></a></p> <p>I am now quoting from the Message from the President (me) column in that annual report:</p> <p><i>All of us concerned about hunger have been keenly aware that each year growing numbers of people are in need of emergency food assistance, many of them women and children and many of them employed, but at low paying jobs. At the same time, organizations that assist those needing help have suffered severe cutbacks in food donations and financial support. This is evidence of a radical shift of responsibility for solving major problems such as hunger, lack of housing, and unemployment from the federal to the local community level. Yet the resources to deal with these problems have not been generated; the local community will has not been mobilized; the effective strategies have not been devised to meet this challenge.</i></p> <p>This was the context for how we developed the FOOD FOR ALL program from the beginning. Working with our eight member board of directors, our nine member Food Industry Advisory Board, our nine member Funds Distribution Advisory Board, and our small and under-paid staff of four (plus me, who got to be President in lieu of a salary), we went back to our years with the Institute of Cultural Affairs where we developed and implemented methods of grassroots participation. Out of this combination of taking an "idea whose time had come," some retail grocers willing to take a chance, and a growing network of volunteers captivated by the vision of a hunger-free future, came the three strategies that would characterize FOOD FOR ALL for the next decade. Again, I turn to our above-mentioned annual report to jog my memory.</p> <p>1) Generating new financial resources to be distributed strategically</p> <p>This of course was the year-round program of check stand contributions that gave grocery shoppers the chance to give a small donation every time they buy food for their families. We determined from the beginning that only 10% of shopper contributions would go for maintaining the organization, and that of the 90% going to grants, three-fourths would go to local programs in the area where they were contributed, and one-fourth would go to long-term solutions to hunger internationally. The way local grants were made was by what were known as Local Grant Advisory Boards, made up of volunteers from the local areas willing to be trained to review grant applications, make site visits to local applicants and make recommendations to FOOD FOR ALL's board. International grants were made through a similar process by our Funds Distribution Advisory Board.</p> <p>During the 1987-88 fiscal year there were fourteen Local Grant Advisory Boards in Southern California and three in Massachusetts and Connecticut.</p> <p>2) Increasing grassroots involvement in ending hunger</p> <p>This was in many ways the heart of the FOOD FOR ALL program. Before we conducted the first test in a supermarket, we operated with the conviction that it would be critical to involve all sorts of grassroots folk in all aspects, from deciding how money was to be applied to the hunger issue to sustaining the program at the "point of sale." We developed several sub-strategies to keep FOOD FOR ALL front and center in people's minds.</p> <p><i>Through FOOD FOR ALL'S Adopt-A-Store program, community organizations commit to working with nearby stores to increase customer participation. Adopters now include religious organizations, corporation employee groups, service clubs, junior and senior high student groups, families and friends, and small businesses. </i>(FFA 1987-88 annual report)</p> <p>Consumer education was also important, so a speakers' bureau offered an educational program which graphically depicted how hunger affects everyone and attempted to motivate people with ideas of how they could take individual and group action, with FOOD FOR ALL as our example of a simple way anyone could participate. Over time we would involve hundreds, perhaps thousands of volunteers as "store ambassadors," customers and sometimes employees at each supermarket, who would do periodic simple promotions with a table inside or outside the store entrance and who would become our watchers of displays, reporters of any issues that needed to be addressed at "their store," and educators of customers, store managers and employees about FOOD FOR ALL.</p> <p>3) Building consensus for action</p> <p><i>FOOD FOR ALL finds out what local people think about hunger and its solutions through . . . an ongoing Think Tank process which begins when FOOD FOR ALL is introduced in a new area. The Think Tanks involve a broad range of people concerned about hunger in a strategic planning process through which participants articulate their vision of a hunger-free society, identify current barriers, determine new directions, and recommend funding strategies for the coming year. </i>(FFA 1987-88 annual report)</p> <p>These events provided us with the guidance that made decisions about applying FOOD FOR ALL grants toward more than "band-aid" short-term approaches. We realized early on that it is more difficult to give money away than to raise it. One political campaign should make that crystal clear to anyone who "has ears to hear." The introductory Think Tank was followed by an annual review and update to the strategies and funding priorities for that area.</p> <p> </p> <p><i>A third component of the Consensus for Action program is a regional conference focused on "sharing models of effective local action." </i>(FFA 1987-88 annual report)</p> <p>As of the end of June, 14 Think Tanks on hunger had been held in southern California. Three were already scheduled for New England, and plans for a series in northern California, where we were planning to expand during the coming year. We were fortunate that we had the ongoing connection with the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA), the organization Linda and I and Georgianna McBurney had been with for many years. The ICA provided facilitators, usually pro bono, for many of these events. Linda was the staff person in charge of all the volunteer programs of FOOD FOR ALL, with an enormous number of hours of assistance from Georgianna and Helen Anderson, a retired school teacher in Orange County, who spent the next decade as a full-time FOOD FOR ALL volunteer. There are others I could mention, and some I omit because of faulty memory. Diane Adams comes to mind. Diane, a Redlands housewife and mother, was a miracle-worker for FOOD FOR ALL's World Food Day events, coordinating hundreds of volunteers in a single day promotional event at all of our participating stores, as well as our speakers' bureau presentations.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-JjIFptrgOlM/VGJXutgws0I/AAAAAAAAFfg/8sFTkRTNakQ/s1600-h/Untitled-9%252520%2525282%252529%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Untitled-9 (2)" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Untitled-9 (2)" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-bb0n_c7MaH4/VGJXwGlsamI/AAAAAAAAFfo/xV29EFOfkEM/Untitled-9%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="339" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><sup><strong><font size="3">Jenny Foster, above right, and Diane Adams below right</font></strong></sup></strong></p> <p>I can't leave this episode in the FOOD FOR ALL story without paying tribute to its founder, Executive Vice President and my wife and life partner, Linda, who managed virtually everything aside from board of directors recruitment and development and marketing to the food industry, which was my assigned area. Linda also wrote almost all of the grant applications for seed money to support the organization during this critical phase. Along with Linda, our staff during this time included Jenny Foster, office manager, who would be with us for the next 10 years and continue on even after Linda and I left the organization. Jenny brought so much to making things work, and also got us an indispensable asset, her husband Ev, who was a systems administrator for San Bernardino County, and who single-handedly designed the financial tracking and accounting system for the store contributions coming in from supermarkets. To round out our small staff, Norma Stumreiter, now deceased, served as our bookkeeper for a couple of years, and Lance Ternasky, a friend and local educator, was a part-time program coordinator.</p> <p>FOOD FOR ALL was now on the way to a feast and famine future. I can't wait to continue the story.</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-44583024561737095962014-10-26T07:51:00.001-07:002014-10-26T07:51:00.631-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 8: Going Bi-Coastal<p>It was the Spring of 1987, one year after our Redlands kickoff in the Gerrards and Lucky stores, followed by a 12-store pilot project and the Lucky launch in Southern California which we were still installing and which would enable us to reach 187 supermarkets by the end of the summer. Calls and letters had been coming into our little office at 112 E. Olive from the time we first set up displays. One of our food industry advisors suggested that we contact a newly formed nonprofit organization made up of retired industry executives, the Food Industry Crusade Against Hunger (FICAH). This group, for good or ill, will be intertwined with us in a common destiny, but we will have to wait a decade for that story to play out. The name they chose to fight world hunger should give a clue or two to their mentality. But they, like us, were responding to the growing global crisis of food insecurity. They were raising money to fund international projects run by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). I discovered that one of the retired executives in this food industry version of "old boys' network" lived in Southern California and had been CEO of Vons Grocery Company. When I met with Ken Olsen he listened patiently for a few minutes to our desire to get FICAH's endorsement and help in expanding our program, after which he informed me that he had his own idea for a Holiday fundraiser using coin boxes at the cash register under the FICAH banner, and he felt our program would be a distraction. He wasn't really open to considering working with us non-industry up-starts. But he didn't discourage me from going to their board meeting in Washington, DC in June. Since I had already wrangled an invitation I decided to go anyway.</p> <p>But how?! We had not yet figured out how we were going to finance our operation. We had hoped that getting the retailers on board with FOOD FOR ALL would attract sponsors and funders in the vast food industry support system: the manufacturers, brokers, suppliers, advertisers, etc. Now we learned that we would be approaching the same companies that our FICAH friends were asking for donations. They were the "who's who" and we were the "who're you?" But this was nothing new to us. I had "friends in low places" (sorry Garth).</p> <p>So I found myself again in the upstairs back office at Gerrards Cypress Center. "Paul, I am at a loss. We have an invitation to FICAH's board meeting. We need to get our idea in front of food manufacturing executives to get financial support for expansion. We are putting all the check stand donations into grants for fighting hunger. Any advice?" </p> <p>Paul thought for a moment and then: "Let's give Bill Christy a call. He knows lots of people in the industry." Bill Christy was CEO of Certified Grocers of California, a large wholesaler supplying independent stores and small chains. Based on his friendship with Paul and his interest in our idea from the start, he agreed to write letters of introduction and make phone calls to executives he knew at General Mills in Minneapolis, Kraft Foods in Chicago, Kellogg's of Battle Creek, Michigan, and General Foods in New York. Paul then offered to pay my way on this cross country trip, up to a thousand dollars. In 1987 this would cover the entire trip. I got appointments with three out of the four industry leaders.</p> <p>So, armed with my sample FOOD FOR ALL displays, letters of endorsement from everybody I thought would matter to these guys, and my one business suit worthy of making presentations, I headed east on Southwest Airlines, which became my airline of choice for the next decade. I was fortunate to have family, friends and colleagues all over the country, from my church and ICA days. My daughter lived in Minneapolis so I could bunk at her place while visiting the General Mills contact. Kitty Cole and the Myers, Sally and Kermit, in Chicago put me up on numerous occasions when in town for the big annual Food Marketing Institute conventions, and on this occasion, the meeting with Kraft Foods. I was on my own flying into Detroit for the drive to Battle Creek to meet the Kellogg folk. Neill Richards and his wife Jessie, who lived in New Jersey, would put me up many times on my east coast journeys.  Neill will play a most important role in keeping our program going in New York and New England.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-yOjU6VEL_uQ/VE0KQM6zp1I/AAAAAAAAFb4/6Ar36bw13Lk/s1600-h/General%252520Mills%252520Mpls%25255B13%25255D.jpg"><img title="General Mills Mpls" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="General Mills Mpls" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-HN6SUY3ldJQ/VE0KQqxEHuI/AAAAAAAAFcA/nLwqrQXdlWA/General%252520Mills%252520Mpls_thumb%25255B11%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="406" height="182" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-mcozglnPPcw/VE0KRPq3Q7I/AAAAAAAAFcI/F8MjglCwiIg/s1600-h/Kraft_Foods_HQ_Northfield_IL%25255B12%25255D.jpg"><img title="Kraft_Foods_HQ_Northfield_IL" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Kraft_Foods_HQ_Northfield_IL" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-SAxgxpg-iq8/VE0KRqGgBBI/AAAAAAAAFcM/ob3HkdegWyQ/Kraft_Foods_HQ_Northfield_IL_thumb%25255B10%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="314" /></a></p> <p>I made passionate pleas for support to these food industry giants on this trip. I came back with a feeling of failure, not a red cent pledged to advance our cause. It was not a total loss, but it would take a few years before their mild interest would produce fruit. The most illustrative story I have from that series of meetings was the one with Mr. William (Bill) Lamothe, CEO of Kellogg's of Battle Creek. I rented a car at the Detroit airport and made the two hour drive to Battle Creek, this delightful small town in middle America. I found the Kellogg's headquarters, a five story large red brick building right in the middle of Battle Creek. I entered a large atrium with an escalator running in front of me to the top floor. After identifying myself I was directed to the moving stairway, to be met at the top by the Vice President and head of the Kellogg's Foundation, a very pleasant and welcoming woman who greeted me warmly and escorted me to the executive suite of offices where she introduced me to Bill Lamothe, who impressed me as a slight man for an industry giant, and to the President of Kellogg's US.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-zjMc8eD1XY0/VE0KSDB2n5I/AAAAAAAAFcU/xnuyWrYPUCA/s1600-h/Kellogg%252527s%252520of%252520Battle%252520Creek%25255B11%25255D.jpg"><img title="Kellogg's of Battle Creek" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Kellogg's of Battle Creek" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-596ukxX-PKw/VE0KSukNUlI/AAAAAAAAFcg/Hi0Pt8Z2g6s/Kellogg%252527s%252520of%252520Battle%252520Creek_thumb%25255B9%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="251" /></a></p> <p>The three of them sat with me for an hour and a half, asking questions about our program, its progress and our plans for the future. They seemed genuinely interested and trying to find a way that the company could be helpful to us. At one point, Mr. Lamothe made a pointed statement: "You know, if we really wanted to, we could put your FOOD FOR ALL cards into every one of our cereal boxes." That comment seemed to be his one thought about how they could help us, and it sort of hung in the air for a moment and then: ". . . not that we are going to do it." When it came time to end the meeting, Bill Lamothe, the CEO of Kellogg's of Battle Creek, said: "Wait a minute." He went to a cupboard at the side of the meeting room and pulled two boxes of cereal off the shelf. Handing them to me with an air of pride, he said: "These are two of our newest products we are introducing this year." He was giving me a gift. "This is the new Muesli." I did not blink an eye, although I was internally swallowing hard. "Thank you for these, and thank you for your interest in having me come to Battle Creek," was all I could muster. He then walked with me all the way down the long escalator right to the front door. As with the other companies, it would take a few years before this visit would bear fruit. But the irony of the meeting and the result did not escape me. Of the many chances to meet these "captains of industry" in the coming years, this story stands out in my memory.</p> <p>By the time I got to Washington for the meeting with the FICAH board, I was a thoroughly humble nonprofit executive. And having my expectations lowered also meant I had nothing to lose. So I was pleasantly surprised at the warm reception I was given by FICAH's executive director, who was actually a guy with years of experience in the NGO world internationally. I was also welcomed and encouraged by the board officers, especially their president Dick Katzenbach, a retired CEO of Fleming Foods. Dick and I would maintain a cordial correspondence for the next decade. I was assured that FICAH had interest only in supporting international self-help projects, but warned that board member Ken Olsen was committed to spreading his Holiday coin box project, which might make it more difficult for our fledgling program. </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-qKDoIKXzNC4/VE0KTGPfcrI/AAAAAAAAFck/z7G7ICUqDTs/s1600-h/National%252520Mall%25255B21%25255D.jpg"><img title="National Mall" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="National Mall" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Y6GO13Idu_4/VE0KTlDyoSI/AAAAAAAAFcw/D9CrtwMjKtc/National%252520Mall_thumb%25255B19%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="408" height="322" /></a></p> <p>The FICAH board meeting was being held at the same time and location as a newly formed coalition of non-governmental organizations, such as World Vision, Save the Children, Freedom From Hunger, and many others. It's name was INTERACTION, and was headed by Peter Davies, formerly President of Freedom from Hunger. I was fortunate to get introduced to heads of many major nonprofits involved in anti-hunger efforts, and since FOOD FOR ALL's mission was to support these efforts through grants, they were all interested in what we were doing.</p> <p>At the end of this week-long cross-country "junket" I was wondering if I had calculated all the obstacles that would possibly arise and whether we could muster the resources to meet them. As I was spending my last couple of days walking around the Capitol mall, soaking up what I could of our nation's history, I wondered just how they did it, the founding fathers (and mothers--don't forget Abigail Adams and Martha Washington). They encountered far more resistance than we had. What kept them going? And they were building an entire new country! We were just trying to get a couple of industries to adopt a new idea: the food industry and the anti-hunger industry, and, though it's a stretch to say industry, supermarket shoppers across the country.</p> <p>I happened to remember that one of the letters we had received when the first test of FOOD FOR ALL was publicized in Supermarket News, almost a year before, was from a grocery chain in New England. I called the office to get the address and phone number, thinking I might as well at least touch base while on this side of the continent. The letter was signed by Daniel J. Lescoe, Vice President, Marketing of Waldbaum's Food Mart, Springfield, Massachusetts. I dialed the number and asked for Mr. Lescoe.</p> <p>"This is Dan Lescoe."</p> <p>Hi, Mr. Lescoe, this is Milan Hamilton of FOOD FOR ALL." (That was as far as I got).</p> <p>"What took you so long. We've been ready to go with your program for a year now."</p> <p>I had been in Springfield, Mass in the seventies when I was with the ICA and working for Monarch Life, whose home office is there. But I was in Washington. So Mr. Lescoe suggested that we meet for lunch the next day in Hartford, Connecticut. "There is an express train to New York and you can catch a commuter train and be in Hartford by Noon. I'll meet you at Frank's Italian Restaurant, just a couple of blocks from the station." That was an invitation I could not refuse.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-_bRkrgLGopU/VE0KUL3FvII/AAAAAAAAFc4/q_N_pXP8dFk/s1600-h/Franks%252520of%252520Hartford%25255B14%25255D.jpg"><img title="Franks of Hartford" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Franks of Hartford" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-DgjtZP_FX6k/VE0KUjg6n_I/AAAAAAAAFdA/EvDRL5B602s/Franks%252520of%252520Hartford_thumb%25255B11%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="409" height="269" /></a></p> <p>Somehow I made it to Hartford in time, found the restaurant, and during an hour and a half meeting, on a lunch napkin, planned the launch of FOOD FOR ALL in all 36 Waldbaum's Food Mart stores along the I-95 corridor, from Greenfield, Mass to New Haven, Connecticut, including all the logistics: racks, installation, employee orientation, advertising, and whatever else I thought was needed. Every time I brought up an issue that sounded to me like a potential hindrance to success, Dan would respond with "Don't worry about that. I'll handle it." That included any costs involved. And the wonder of it was, I believed him. We planned to introduce FOOD FOR ALL for the 1987 Holiday season, kicking off Thanksgiving week. This gave us a few months to make all the contacts in the local nonprofit world. Should be easy.</p> <p>I returned to what was now the national headquarters of FOOD FOR ALL, Inc. with no money, no clue how we were going to finance a bi-coastal program, no firm commitments for food manufacturer sponsorship. But strangely, I felt a little like Rocky dancing on the steps. I had been in the inner sanctums of some of the leaders of the food industry. I had stood in our nation's capitol gathering courage for what lay ahead. I had been to New England, the cradle of liberty. I had almost the same feeling as in 1978 completing all of those Maine Town Meetings, a part of the massive volunteer bicentennial project the ICA conducted. After all, we now had more than 200 supermarkets participating, on both ends of the country. And No One had as yet come right out and said to us: "This is a crazy idea. It won't work."</p> <p>But we have our work cut out for us.</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-49046941342889405742014-10-06T15:40:00.001-07:002014-10-06T15:40:01.604-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 7: The First $100,000 is the Hardest!<p>So many pieces had to come together. We needed staff to handle the accounting for donations as they came in from companies and stores. We needed funds to hire office staff. We needed office space and equipment. We needed to continue reaching more supermarkets. We needed help in promoting the FOOD FOR ALL program.</p> <p>What we had was a committed group of volunteers, including our Board of Directors, now numbering seven. Mayor Carol Beswick and Darryl Brock, Executive Director of Survive Food Bank in Riverside, were captivated by our vision of FOOD FOR ALL in every supermarket. They joined our Board in the Spring of 1987. Our growing Food Industry Advisory Board of influential grocers included, besides Paul Gerrard, Bob Inadomi of JonSons Markets in Los Angeles, and Bill Christy, CEO of Certified Grocers of California, a large wholesale grocer. Both Bob and Bill would become important members of our Board of Directors as we expanded the program. </p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-4XL5lnzjeBo/VDMaHeMZzkI/AAAAAAAAEmw/s-m0Ieg1Yfs/s1600-h/JonSons%252520Mkt%252520kickoff%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="JonSons Mkt kickoff" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="JonSons Mkt kickoff" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-DsT-XuSVSQQ/VDMaINr0wyI/AAAAAAAAEm4/ntLeLlcK8Gg/JonSons%252520Mkt%252520kickoff_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="405" height="278" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="3">Steve Soto, Bob Inadomi, Bill Christy, Milan Hamilton</font></strong></p> <p>Our Funds Distribution Advisory Board, headed by our founding board member Georgianna McBurney, was a key element in developing our policies and procedures for making grants to impact the hunger issue, locally and internationally. </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-0ZlD-eg2uxA/VDMaI5VVqaI/AAAAAAAAEnA/WWoFHpTIvC8/s1600-h/FFA%252520FDAB-2%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA FDAB-2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA FDAB-2" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-c55O96Fc_NY/VDMaJjyOIiI/AAAAAAAAEnE/jDwpdHdip5U/FFA%252520FDAB-2_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="407" height="325" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="3">Funds Distribution Advisory Board</font></strong></p> <p>The fledgling Public Relations Advisory Board of marketing and PR professionals and a few politicians gave us valuable guidance in how to best promote the program. But it was the grassroots volunteers, customers and store employees, anti-hunger activists and churches, who made it all work.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-jjUiHbGRqVo/VDMaKFSOsbI/AAAAAAAAEnM/JdqhY3dh6MU/s1600-h/Store%252520Volunteers%2525201%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Store Volunteers 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Store Volunteers 1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-T_vJzjFhwaM/VDMaKXW9MnI/AAAAAAAAEnU/pZXHz1XmzDY/Store%252520Volunteers%2525201_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="288" /></a>   <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-lYQj_lBjQS8/VDMaK6ReELI/AAAAAAAAEnc/wsDHOTxZkME/s1600-h/Store%252520Volunteers%2525202%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Store Volunteers 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Store Volunteers 2" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-eqjPPeEvBI4/VDMaLntUrWI/AAAAAAAAEno/RAC9AyOLaVY/Store%252520Volunteers%2525202_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="205" height="290" /></a></p> <p>Because of Linda, my, and Georgianna's years of training with the ICA in methods of participation and community development, we were able to come up with a system of volunteer recruitment and training. This would generate hundreds of committed people willing to work toward common goals: The link between the supermarkets and the local agencies that would be the recipients of grants to help alleviate hunger. Our volunteer "Store Ambassadors" took on the job of educating employees and customers about the need and how their donations were helping. They helped maintain the displays and periodically would get permission to hold a promotion at "their store." Our trained Local Grants Advisory Boards (LGABs) reviewed grant applications from local agencies, conducted site visits regularly, and made recommendations to the FOOD FOR ALL Board for grants. There were ultimately about ten of these in Southern California alone, with anywhere from three to ten volunteers on each one.</p> <p>We were fortunate that FOOD FOR ALL received quite a lot of recognition from the media within and outside the food industry from the start. This was probably a blessing and a curse. We were getting calls and letters of interest from as far away as Connecticut while we were still trying to establish the program in Southern California. Board member Redlands mayor Carole Beswick attracted the interest of Paul Newman who agreed to be our national spokesman before we even were national. So though his involvement gave us a shot of adrenalin and he raised about $10,000 through a letter to his friends, his involvement ended soon after when he realized we were not quite ready to "go big." </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Qf1-imm9U7s/VDMaMDOnKyI/AAAAAAAAEnw/U8FZrHFWZ0k/s1600-h/Paul%252520Newman%252520June%25252087%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img title="Paul Newman June 87" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Paul Newman June 87" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Ehk_d59_t4I/VDMaMgXvRwI/AAAAAAAAEn0/-nPL5cV92M0/Paul%252520Newman%252520June%25252087_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="201" height="316" /></a>   <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-LBseXtAERgA/VDMaNVU-ZSI/AAAAAAAAEoA/kum7A5Q4xOQ/s1600-h/Paul%252520Newman%252520Letter%252520May%25252087%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img title="Paul Newman Letter May 87" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Paul Newman Letter May 87" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ixWmI28o1U4/VDMaNxcFGWI/AAAAAAAAEoI/k9I9DZgHeMg/Paul%252520Newman%252520Letter%252520May%25252087_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="194" height="316" /></a></p> <p>By the end of September of 1987, just one year after completing our two-store test, donations had surpassed $100,000, we had completed the installation of FOOD FOR ALL in 180 Lucky stores in Southern California and Las Vegas, JonSons Markets in East LA, beginning tests in three Hughes Markets in Pasadena, and a dozen independent grocers scattered throughout the region. Grants of more than $50,000 had already been allocated to local hunger relief agencies, plus three international projects: An experimental agricultural project in Puerto Rico, a Meals for Millions (now Freedom From Hunger) program in Honduras, and Heifer Project in the Dominican Republic.</p> <p>We were now in a one-room donated office at 112 E. Olive, which would grow into FOOD FOR ALL's national headquarters, thanks to the generosity of local CPA Charles Ziilch. We had somehow managed to hire two part-time staff, Jenny Foster and Norma Stumreiter. We were trying to figure how to allow Linda to quit her day job at the University of Redlands and I believe this happened during this period as well, due to a generous grant of $10,000 from World Vision, made possible by a meeting set up by Stan Matson, a development officer at the University. Things just seemed to be falling in place for this "idea whose time had come."</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-m8_FPFf1oeo/VDMaOEsszXI/AAAAAAAAEoQ/RayRwjdQeDc/s1600-h/FFA%252520Hub%2525201%25255B10%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA Hub 1" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Hub 1" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-A3kaaQtU0lk/VDMaPCqV4pI/AAAAAAAAEoU/9w3w-kjG_AA/FFA%252520Hub%2525201_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="192" height="142" /></a>     <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-NvYzgaTHtBs/VDMaPa_sYiI/AAAAAAAAEoc/Ph_hSxBC3RQ/s1600-h/FFA%252520%2525202%25255B9%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA 2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA 2" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-vKp2sBS2QwE/VDMaP84Vj7I/AAAAAAAAEok/gvSr4RGHzfw/FFA%252520%2525202_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="199" height="145" /></a></p> <p align="center"><strong><font size="4">Jenny Foster and Linda Hamilton</font></strong></p> <p>Now we had a six month salary for Linda to devote full-time to managing a growing volunteer and grant program. I was still a full-time volunteer. In lieu of paying me I was elected President. Our Board of Directors now numbered eight, having added Bob Inadomi of JonSons Markets and Scott Reynolds, the Redlands attorney who did our original incorporation and by-laws pro-bono.</p> <p>We were ready to go for major food industry support and expand the program to other regions of the US. We were also advised by our food industry supporters to seek the endorsement of a newly formed organization of industry executives, the Food Industry Crusade Against Hunger (FICAH) and the lobbying arm of the grocers, the Food Marketing Institute (FMI). They were in Washington, DC. I was trying to figure out how to get to their meeting. There were also several major food manufacturers we needed to get in front of to try to gain their sponsorship. But they were in the Midwest and the east coast.</p> <p>It was time to get advice and help. So I headed for Gerrards Market, asked if Paul was in, and trudged up the steps to his office.</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-12959279590605950512014-10-01T07:00:00.001-07:002014-10-01T07:00:56.371-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 6: We Are Lucky!<p>New Year 1987 was a celebration of a successful eight month test of our "supermarket check stand customer donation program to help end hunger." It takes a while for a grassroots group of neophytes at marketing and advertising to get a concise message, but that is what was required if we were to make this work. "Simple, elegant, compelling" header cards for displays and colorful donation cards with the entire FOOD FOR ALL story on the back. We decided against the usual photos of a hungry child that characterized most appeals for donations. That is also why we spent two years in research and preparation for a public education program that involved conducting "hunger forums" all over southern California, followed by building a network of volunteers who would determine how local grants were given out and who would educate customers and employees about the hunger issue, and how giving a FOOD FOR ALL donation each time they bought groceries would help.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-VdtXrRNT_Do/VCwI_2ldBnI/AAAAAAAAElU/twqAgxSGMt8/s1600-h/Lucky-Redlands-863.jpg"><img title="Lucky Redlands 86" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Lucky Redlands 86" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-nVWXleD_Zf8/VCwJAp3TWlI/AAAAAAAAElY/KP122Evexho/Lucky-Redlands-86_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="404" height="485" /></a></p> <p align="left"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-BI6_5j4jJc4/VCwJBDoi92I/AAAAAAAAElk/gkiBbJrkoi0/s1600-h/FFA-LL-Mkt4.jpg"><img title="FFA LL Mkt" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA LL Mkt" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-JWVJtgmEQlk/VCwJB0eYjXI/AAAAAAAAElo/2BX_9SO_jOc/FFA-LL-Mkt_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="404" height="298" /></a><strong></strong></p> <p align="center"><strong>FOOD FOR ALL at Loma Linda Market</strong></p> <p>FOOD FOR ALL had been nursed through its infancy in Redlands during the latter part of '86 to twelve supermarkets by the end of the year, raising $18,000. During this time, in addition to traveling around in our 1970 VW bus, loaded with metal racks and our supply of donation cards, I made several stops at Lucky Stores Southern California headquarters in Buena Park, getting acquainted with just how supermarkets operated, in anticipation of Lucky taking on our program chain-wide. Dick Fredericksen, VP of Marketing, introduced me to Karen Sturgeon, Director of Advertising, who reported to Dick, and Nancy Chandler, Public Relations Director, who reported to Karen. Dick was a typical marketing executive, an idea man who was always coming up with great promotions for the company to execute. Karen was a "show me" person, and "by the way who is going to pay for this?" Nancy Chandler, ah yes, dear Nancy: She was someone who quietly went about her work getting things done, cajoling anyone who needed cajoling, figuring out ahead of time who needed to be convinced of the rightness of her cause, and going around whomever needed to be gone around. Nancy was responsible for Lucky's charitable giving. Nancy got FOOD FOR ALL. Nancy got me!</p> <p>When the time was right, sometime in January of 1987 I believe it was, Nancy and I devised a plan for "rolling out" FOOD FOR ALL in all approximately 170 Lucky Stores in southern California, a district at a time, LA County first, then Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside,San Diego; and finally the outlying stores in Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Kern and Tulare. This would take some time. We only had one merchandiser to set up all these displays at the time: Me! and my trusty '70 VW bus with the middle seat removed.</p> <p>The issue of how to get all the printed cards and display headers we needed was solved also by Nancy. Lucky's advertising department would print them. When Karen finally agreed to Nancy's request, she said: "Send them an invoice for the job." This was not to be the first time Nancy went to Karen and every time I would ask her "What shall we do about this invoice we got from your advertising department?" Nancy would give me a pat on the hand and smile and say "Let me worry about that."</p> <p>One more minor hurdle we had to get over, I discovered, was "Operations." Don Pratt, Vice President of Operations, like Dick Fredericksen, reported to the President. We had to work with all the Lucky District Managers and Store Managers in order to actually install displays at their check stands. I overheard a remark by Don Pratt in the hallway of Lucky headquarters after a meeting with Nancy, Karen and Dick one day, Don speaking to one of his operations guys: "So what's tricky Dick up to now." Nancy couldn't help me with this one. Although everyone loved Nancy, we were going to have to win this one with a lot of hard work and bending over backwards to not make store managers' jobs any harder than they already were.</p> <p>The time finally came for the "Lucky Launch." April 6, 1987. The plan was ready. The cards were printed. My VW bus was gassed up. The word was out to the District Managers to prepare their store managers for our coming. Nancy was ready with her PR plan. I forgot to mention a couple of other reasons Nancy was our champion. Nancy was a good friend of Stephanie Edwards, Lucky's TV spokesperson in those days. And Nancy's son Bill was Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley's chief of staff. One day as we were discussing the coming kickoff in Lucky Stores, after I had already put up displays in many of the LA stores, Nancy said: "Why don't I give Bill a call and see if he can help us?" It happened that the Mayor was in town and it was a good time for him to hold a press conference. The media had some questions they were dying to get to him about. So Bill scheduled a press conference with the primary purpose of announcing the introduction of FOOD FOR ALL in Los Angeles.</p> <p>The day came, April 6. We showed up at City Hall and were surprised and delighted to find the press room packed with every newspaper and TV outlet in Los Angeles. Paul Gerrard, Bob Inadomi of JonSons Markets, and of course Dick Fredericksen of Lucky were there. Bill Chandler had done his job. Mayor Bradley did his job, which he was good at. He introduced Linda and me as founders of FOOD FOR ALL. We gave our little spiel, profusely thanking the mayor, Lucky, and the other supermarket owners, and then the press got their opportunity to ask the mayor about what they came for, which was not FOOD FOR ALL. Nevertheless, FOOD FOR ALL became the day's story on the 6 o'clock news on all channels.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-5omv2zyKMkg/VCwJCVE3YOI/AAAAAAAAEl0/PAlKIGukHsA/s1600-h/LA-Mayor-Press-Conf4.jpg"><img title="LA Mayor Press Conf" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="LA Mayor Press Conf" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-xwuq56xCyqM/VCwJDcsnKtI/AAAAAAAAEl4/HgXOC76rFhM/LA-Mayor-Press-Conf_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="406" height="265" /></a></p> <p>Now all we had to do was get FOOD FOR ALL displays up in all 170 Lucky Stores, four more JonSons Markets, and a handful of independent grocery stores. Lucky was pushing us to move as fast as possible to take advantage of the chain-wide advertising and promotion they wanted to do. </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-qkZILgdVRDk/VCwJD8AE8XI/AAAAAAAAEmE/x0eAWDjFwtE/s1600-h/Lucky-Launch-Message8.jpg"><img title="Lucky Launch Message" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto 5px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Lucky Launch Message" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-LSbBM8GKh7o/VCwJEhA-cvI/AAAAAAAAEmI/fVX2HJ21xuQ/Lucky-Launch-Message_thumb4.jpg?imgmax=800" width="349" height="451" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-YHciSKRfouI/VCwJFFN2NzI/AAAAAAAAEmU/HRUBdJRrYI4/s1600-h/Lucky-66-April-9-877.jpg"><img title="Lucky 66 April 9, 87" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Lucky 66 April 9, 87" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-3fZsr-oEbLI/VCwJFiFzxOI/AAAAAAAAEmY/it8TiJgMaWI/Lucky-66-April-9-87_thumb3.jpg?imgmax=800" width="305" height="234" /></a>We still had just one merchandiser--Me, and my '70 VW bus. And we still had no operating funds. Linda was still working full time at the University of Redlands. I was the only full time volunteer. We were still operating out of our town house living room. We needed HELP!</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961798486435174689.post-27798719269098184272014-09-19T16:00:00.001-07:002014-09-19T16:00:03.535-07:00FOOD FOR ALL ERA 5: The Twelve Store Pilot<p>The two-store test was pronounced a success. Nearly $9,000 had come in over the summer at the check stands of Gerrards Market and the Lucky Store in Redlands. Grants had already been given to three local agencies and one small agricultural project in Puerto Rico. Bob Byrd, then pastor of Magnolia Presbyterian Church and President of the Riverside Coalition on World Hunger, had done a great job of helping us put together a steering committee for the expansion phase of the FOOD FOR ALL program. We sent letters to all the retail grocers in the area and followed up with personal visits to each independent market owner. We received a positive response from the independents and had commitments from seven of them by early October. In addition we had the go-ahead from Bob Inadomi, President of JonSons Markets to test FOOD FOR ALL displays in his East Los Angeles store, with plans to expand to their other four stores later in the year. We were still waiting for Lucky Stores to respond.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-up4Sj2bCTnY/VBy1XdwdZ6I/AAAAAAAAEj4/hHTwxnQlbKs/s1600-h/JonSons%252520Mkt%252520Kickoff2%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="JonSons Mkt Kickoff2" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="JonSons Mkt Kickoff2" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-fBkMwkQelbY/VBy1X_WG5SI/AAAAAAAAEj8/kkcqzBUjWCI/JonSons%252520Mkt%252520Kickoff2_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="407" height="326" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-YqiRs9g9kvU/VBy1YQ0R4sI/AAAAAAAAEkI/TNKaiVMv9c0/s1600-h/JonSons%252520Mkt%252520kickoff%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="JonSons Mkt kickoff" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="JonSons Mkt kickoff" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-EFVV4TvPqRE/VBy1ZIQzBEI/AAAAAAAAEkM/TNItPWdGSww/JonSons%252520Mkt%252520kickoff_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="407" height="279" /></a></p> <p>Just before the October 21 kickoff date we got the call from our friend Dick Fredericksen, VP of Lucky, that allowed us to include four of their stores. We were frantically working to set up displays in our twelve expanded test stores: Calimesa Food Fair, Ron's Foods, Uli's Gourmet Foods, Super Saver, La Sierra Market, Glen Avon Market, and three more Lucky Stores in the Riverside metro.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-6ij6uropR2g/VBy1Zlj0rZI/AAAAAAAAEkY/ga2wmt9uZq8/s1600-h/FFA%252520Expands%252520Dec%2525201986%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="FFA Expands Dec 1986" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="FFA Expands Dec 1986" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-G6Q-CqOsS0U/VBy1aFODpYI/AAAAAAAAEkc/kTBBb-7kbrU/FFA%252520Expands%252520Dec%2525201986_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="401" height="575" /></a></p> <p>Ab Brown, then Mayor of Riverside, hosted a kickoff luncheon at Riverside City Hall on Tuesday, October 21, attended by two dozen people, including owners of four of the independent markets and the Lucky Stores District Manager. Separate events were held at the Glen Avon Market and JonSons Market in LA on the following day. We were off and running. Customers were supporting the program. Store employees were willing to help educate customers, as our volunteers tirelessly showed up to educate them and hand out informational flyers outside their stores. By the end of November more than $15,000 had been donated. Grants were given to four local Riverside organizations: Arlington Welfare Association, Lutheran Social Services, Friends Outside, and Survive Food Bank.</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Xm_3GcC5PVw/VBy1atd_vJI/AAAAAAAAEko/YrVGbpct4rM/s1600-h/Calimesa%252520Fd%252520Fair%252520Kickoff%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="Calimesa Fd Fair Kickoff" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Calimesa Fd Fair Kickoff" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-G-tKemfnBIw/VBy1bB-xMAI/AAAAAAAAEks/uIlKZiXsXLw/Calimesa%252520Fd%252520Fair%252520Kickoff_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="410" height="285" /></a></p> <p>Before the end of December we even "went to Hollywood." One of our volunteers who shopped at the Beachwood Market, which sits just under the Hollywood sign, approached the owner and told him about FOOD FOR ALL. He was enthusiastic at what he heard and we held a special holiday kickoff event at Beachwood Market. Many of the Hollywood celebrities lived in the neighborhood and shopped there.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-wL7VJ-TsXhQ/VBy1bqLECdI/AAAAAAAAEk4/L6MWCxQVAc8/s1600-h/Beachwood%252520Mkt%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Beachwood Mkt" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Beachwood Mkt" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-GiSI1_cCFYE/VBy1cdcx6tI/AAAAAAAAElA/zlp7c7iHpLc/Beachwood%252520Mkt_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="335" height="489" /></a></p> <p>We were off to a great start. Where do we go from here?</p> Mellow Milanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06681114996132879414noreply@blogger.com0