E303: Amy Beros on centering community in food banking

North Carolina is one of the nation's top agricultural producing states. And it is also a state where one in seven residents don't have the resources to provide food on their table every day. Today, I'm talking with Amy Beros, president and CEO of the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina - the state's largest food bank. Each year, this organization provides 95 million meals distributed through more than 700 partner agencies, food pantries, congregate meal sites, backpack programs. And they do this in 34 counties in the state. In our conversation today, we will explore the policy issues that this food bank and many food banks face.

Interview Transcript

Amy, I want to ask a really simple question about what got you to this place. So how in the world did you get involved in food banking?

Oh, gosh. Well, you know, when I was growing up, I didn't know what food banking was. But I knew that it was our responsibility to make sure that neighbors helped neighbors. So, I grew up volunteering what I know now is a partner agency of the local food bank in my hometown. And as I moved across the country, I found ways to get involved. When I moved here to North Carolina about 16 years ago, I found food banks. I've been working professionally in food banking for a little over 12 years now. But I believe that food is a basic human right, and it has been my life's work to make sure that we're doing everything we can to ensure everyone has what they need.

Thank you for sharing that. And I can imagine over the years, as I've also been involved in food banking but on the board side or as a volunteer, that this is a work that we sometimes think it's just about moving food and providing that. However, there's a whole policy framework that, sort of, surrounds and influences and shapes what food banking and what the work of the partner agencies, the food pantries on the ground, what they do. I wonder if you could help make this a little bit more real for us. Could you tell us a little bit about how policy becomes personal in your work? Can you share a moment when that really came true for you?

Oh, I think the most recent blinding moment was last year during the government shutdown. Well, one, there's a lot of noise on TV right now, right, and in the media, but you hear of these massive numbers, and we know that our elected leaders are looking at these numbers on spreadsheets. And we see the humans behind those numbers and their stories. And these are thousands and thousands of stories like the ones that we hear about each day. Last year, during the shutdown, a father of five reached out to me and said, "I have five children. I work at the federal prison. I'm missing my second paycheck. For the first time in my life, I don't know how I'm going to put food on the table." Or the SNAP delay and disruption that we had. For the first time in our history during that shutdown, a mother reaching out and saying, "I don't know what to do. I've told my children to eat everything they can at school because I don't know what we're going to have when we get home, if we don't have these benefits." And that's just two stories and one crisis. And so many of our neighbors are living a crisis every day. These systemic issues. And we see those humans and hear their stories each day. And I think that's when it becomes personal. These decisions, one stroke of a pen, impacts food for hundreds of thousands of neighbors.

Thank you for sharing that. I teach a class called the Economics of the Public Sector, and we often talk about policies that provide support to individuals. And it can be easy to talk about these policies as if they're just decisions that policymakers make, but there are real people who are dependent on these policies. And when they don't work or when rules change, it has significant implications for how people navigate. And so, I appreciate the work that you all are doing. I want to take a step back and talk about food banking. And while I know a lot of our listeners are familiar with food banking and food pantries, I do know that people kind of mix those two terms up. Amy, would you just tell us, broadly speaking, what's a food bank, and then what are the partner agencies. And how do they relate to one another?

Yes, absolutely. Our food bank serves 34 counties in North Carolina. And as you shared, we work with over 700 partners. We work with growers. We work with over 80 local farmers in North Carolina. We work with manufacturers in North Carolina. We work with all of the retail chains to get food out into the community. And we do that primarily through those partners because they are embedded into the community. And what we're really proud of here, and I think something of how food banking has changed, you know, many people still think of a food bank as a dimly lit church basement pantry. And that maybe was food banking 30 years ago. But today it is part of the modern food system. We are a critical piece of infrastructure within the food system as part of the charitable food system. And one of the things that I'm most proud of is we live in North Carolina, this beautiful agriculture state, and over half of what we distribute each year is produce and protein. And that is what neighbors are asking for, too. Because neighbors want the healthy fresh foods, and it's also the most expensive to buy. And food banking today is not just focused on moving calories and getting pounds of food out to the community. It's focused on meals and nutritious meals and how to provide that nutrition education to make meals healthier. To use the types of foods you would get in a food pantry. For instance, I just learned at one of our nutrition demos this past weekend, you can leave the peel on a sweet potato, blend it up, and make it into a pancake. You never notice that you left it on there, but you get so much more fiber. And we're doing these types of trainings to help people make meals more nutritious, make meals go further, too, that they're getting. It's really a holistic approach. It's about being alongside community partners that are embedded into the community that are providing holistic supports like workforce development, job training, housing support. And we're that food portion as part of those agencies and making sure they have the right food and enough food to get out into the community.

It's really helpful to hear the ways that food banking is adjusting. This idea you're no longer just this big organization that takes in a bunch of food and then distributes it through, you know, food pantries and what used to be called soup kitchens. But rather you're working with other community partners, you're working with farmers to find ways of moving food, but also providing opportunities and thinking about this almost as wraparound services. Are there other things that are being provided than just meals? I know I've been in pantries where there have been nurses, and there have been other support services like ways to sign up to SNAP. This is a sort of a series of overlapping and intersecting opportunities to help families meet their food needs, but more than that, their sort of broader set of needs. And I think this is a really critical way of understanding that food banking looks different than, like you said, grandmothers working in a church basement. I know that the work that food banks can serve as shock absorbers. When things go down, when things are problematic, food banks are there to sort of meet needs in a real way. We've seen a great deal of breakdown in policies over the last several months, and both at the state and at the national level. What does this shock look like to you and your partner agencies on the ground?

It has been a tough year. You know, our budget went from 27% government funding and support to less than 10% in one year just because of decisions that were made in an instant. And there was no feedback structure. And I think that's one thing that I really pride our food bank on is the community feedback. We're constantly trying to engage with neighbors facing hunger, understand nobody knows what people facing hunger need more than the people who are literally experiencing it every single day. We try to ground all of our decisions in what is the community saying they need of us. And I think that is one of the things that's been so frustrating to see the decisions made this past year at the federal level. There's been no feedback. It's just numbers on a paper. And within, you know, a stroke of a pen, North Carolina lost $30 million for food purchased from North Carolina farmers for schools and food banks. And that was just North Carolina. It was one billion across the nation. And we're impacting people facing hunger, we're impacting farmers at the same time, and we have farmers who are saying, "I don't know if I'm gonna keep my family farm open." With SNAP, you know, we have cuts coming this year for SNAP and changes that are going to be detrimental for so many of our neighbors. And the cost shift to the states that are not prepared to take that. There's not a transition plan place. And SNAP is an economic driver. For every one meal a food bank provides, SNAP provides nine. We can't replace SNAP if we lose those meals. There's no possible way for us to charitable food our way out of that. But I don't think people realize the ripple impact of those decisions. So yes, it's going to impact people facing hunger. And eight out of 10 of those people on SNAP are working families, seniors, people with disabilities, our most vulnerable neighbors. And at the same time, we're going to see rural grocery stores close. We're going to see more farms close because for every dollar of SNAP, it means $1.50 to $1.60 back into the local economy. And that's going to be a detrimental effect that we can't turn around quickly. It's going to be long-term health impacts for neighbors because of the loss of this nutritious food and the loss of jobs. And we can't just flip a switch and turn that back on because of how damaging it's going to be to so many pieces of our economy. And when I say we can't charitable food our way out of it, we were meant to be here in times of crisis to stabilize and to be an ongoing support for people in the community during that time. But we were never meant to replace the safety net. At the same time, we're having all of these changes at the federal level. We're the only state in the country without a budget. There was another multimillion-dollar loss for food banks and farmers that was invested by the state to purchase from local farmers to go back to neighbors in need. And because we have not had that budget, we've not received those funds. And so, it's really been hit after hit, and we're seeing each one increasing need at our pantries.

Right now, we know there's over 600,000 people facing hunger in our community, and we're hearing from our pantries 20% to 60% more than they're seeing last year. I think that 600,000 people number is actually very low, and we're going to see that continue to climb, unfortunately, because of all the changes we're experiencing this year.

Amy, this is pretty sobering. And I realize that we're talking about issues that are also highly political. And I know you are leading in spaces where you have people who have differences of opinion about what policy should be. But a lot of these people are coming to the work of the food bank, either on the board or in partner agencies or wherever, donors even, because they care about addressing issues around hunger, right? So, how do you build trust? How do you work across these differences to help achieve the goals that food banking is supposed to achieve?

I've never met a politician that told me they didn't like food banks or they didn't care about food banks. There's a lot on people's minds, and I think we need to be in front of our leaders more because there's so much coming at our elected leaders that it's hard for them to even understand everything that's happening in the community. It's hard for me to keep up with just what's happening in our sector, and I'm living it every day, because it's been so fast. I often say, you know, we can't be apolitical. We're nonpartisan, but food is political, so we can't be apolitical. But we'll always be nonpartisan, and we have incredible support from both political parties and all sides of the aisle. And I think we can go in, and we can argue all day long about what we disagree on, and there's much that people disagree on. It's filled in a time when everything feels like it can be political, and we're going to walk out, and we're both going to be mad, and neither one of us is going to change each other's mind. And so I think we have to walk into every conversation with what do we align on, and where can we do good together? Because there's always going to be things we disagree on, but I also know there's always things we align on. And how can we choose those things that we align on and do the most impact and the most good possible with that? Because nobody wants to see a child go hungry. No one wants a senior choosing between medicine and their food or their rent. And so how can we focus, and how can we be a voice to tell that human story that they might not be seeing or hearing enough of so that they understand those true impacts, and we can figure out a way to work together on those alignment?

Yes. I think those are wise words given just the difficulty we're facing right now to find that common ground. To find ways of working together. I'm grateful for the way you are trying to navigate those differences to achieve the bigger goal. The goals that I think many of us want to see achieved. And so that brings me to this last question I want to raise with you. This is a challenging moment that we're in. I want to know what gives you hope, and where do you see people making real difference, despite the challenges that we face?

This is bigger than me, this is bigger than you, this is bigger than the food bank. This is our community. This is the health of our community. And focusing on the health of our community, seeing what happened last year during the shutdown... the community responded in a way that was inspiring and breathtaking for neighbors, because they saw their neighbors hurting. And we are a community food bank. I might get emotional. I do get emotional often. Every day, and I can see them right outside my window right now, we operate because of thousands of volunteers who come here and choose to give their time to us. Thousands of donors who choose to give their money to make a difference in their community. Thousands of food partners who are choosing to work with us. And these more than 700 agencies, we are a community food bank. Our new strategic plan 2030 is called Rooted in Community. And it is grounded in what neighbors said they needed from the food bank, what we are uniquely qualified and able to provide for neighbors right now. And I think seeing that community aspect and seeing the community come together during times like this absolutely gives me hope. And we saw the impact on that on policy, too. During the shutdown, so many advocates reached out and said, "This is unacceptable." And Governor Stein's office invested $3.5 million in our food bank, $10 million across the state during that moment because he saw the need, but he, like we heard from the constituents. And I think seeing and watching how powerful people's voices are, it can't just be the food bank there. It has to be the community members saying, "This is unacceptable in our community." And when we see people come together and align on that, we see change, and that gives me hope. I also think our youth today gives me hope. I just watched a video on C-SPAN that our food bank participated in that two high school students here in Raleigh won an award about building food security in their community. I just talked with a Duke student last week, she's in a feminism and farm class, which is an incredible class that I want to take, I didn't know that existed. And talking about how we can make a change. And I see so many people coming together and truly aligning on what we agree on, and I think with that there comes a lot of power.

BIO

Amy Beros is President & CEO of the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina — among the largest anti-hunger organizations in the United States. Amy returned home to the Food Bank following several years of service with Feeding America, where she led nationwide efforts to build food banks' capacity to better serve people facing hunger and poverty. Throughout her career, Amy has maintained a firm commitment to holding the experiences of neighbors at the heart of every decision. She has applied this community-centered approach across critical efforts in food sourcing and access, disaster response, strategic partnerships, and philanthropy — including leadership roles with Inter-faith Food Shuttle, Easter Seals UCP, and Pillars Community Health. During Amy's prior tenure with the Food Bank, she led the multi-year campaign that established the organization's state-of-the-art Raleigh headquarters and ushered in a new era of systemic solutions to hunger in the region. A South Carolina native, Amy holds a Bachelor of Science from Clemson and an MBA from DePaul University. She currently resides near Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband, two children, and rescue dogs. Outside of work you can find Amy lifting weights, spending time with family, or sharing her love for Dolly Parton with anyone who will listen.