Jefferson County Food Bank Association Board Continues to Serve and Anticipate Growing Need in Our Community
The Jefferson County Food Bank Association (JCFBA) Board serves people experiencing food insecurity in Jefferson County today, while also delivering on longer-term plans to meet the growing needs of our community in the future. Planning for the future is a critical aspect of a Food Bank Board member’s job. At the heart of our work is our commitment and responsibility to provide food to people who need it.
We are modernizing the operation to both source local foods and ensure our shopping locations, times, and days are more accessible for our clients. We strive to make both the quality of the shopping experience and the work environment of volunteers consistently high. These improvements require a systemic approach of goal setting, measuring against those goals, and refining the strategy as needed, as well as updates to long-held beliefs and behaviors.
Recent allegations by a faction of former volunteers have made it clear that more information is needed about recent activities within the JCFBA. Read on for details on what decisions have been made, by whom, and for what reasons regarding changes in Food Bank operations.
Structural changes enacted by prior board
The prior Board of Directors kicked off these changes. In their 2022 strategic planning, they determined a new organizational structure and focus were needed in order to meet the expanding needs of the community. This planning included input from and discussion with the volunteer managers at each of the area Food Banks who were also voting Board members. Note: this process included the board member and former volunteer managers currently agitating to discredit these plans and the JCFBA operation. Together, they identified and agreed on the issues ahead, and decided to undertake the following changes:
A new organizational structure led by a paid Executive Director to run and expand the organization. The job description for this salaried role was discussed with all leadership and approved by the board in December of 2022.
A new focus on breaking down silos and coordinating functions across facilities. Better recordkeeping and more efficient operations give us access to more opportunities to secure funding and food for our clients across eastern Jefferson county.
Nearly a year later, in October of 2023, that same board of directors unanimously voted to hire our Executive Director, Patricia Hennessy.
Over the subsequent four months, due to term limit regulations in the organizational bylaws, the Board’s Executive Team (the Board President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary) all left their positions as their terms ended, and new board members were added and elected to these roles by the remaining board members.
What we’ve been doing since then
To make sure that these changes do in fact help us further our core mandate–-providing food to those in need–we worked with our Executive Director to identify priorities for the short and long term, and are monitoring progress against those plans. The most pressing priorities on the list are to ensure the functionality and construction of a flagship food bank in Quilcene, and to increase efficiencies across the organization so that we can eventually expand existing days of operation and services for each location to better serve our clients. To date we have made the following progress:
We have defined the additional role of Operations/Logistics Coordinator (to further centralize and standardize Food Bank operations for greater efficiency), posted the job, and are now reviewing candidates.
We have restarted the Quilcene Food Bank building project with better processes and oversight, allowing us to secure outside funds for construction. We have renewed our permits, and will be winterizing the building and kicking off the rework later this fall
We are continuing our formal financial audit back through the last 4 years to get context for the data we are collecting so we can confirm we are moving forward as an organization.
We have updated the organizational bylaws to reflect the current organizational structure.
We have added new volunteers and are always seeking more which would allow us to expand our hours. If you have a passion for helping your friends and neighbors, your community, please join us: https://jcfba.org/volunteer
Lastly: We are recruiting new board members to help us reach our goals. If you’d like to help with this important work, you can find information about joining our board here: https://jcfba.org/news/board
We as a Board are actively working on governance and support of this organization during this period of change. We are monitoring progress on these plans, and are committed to giving our Executive Director the support, coaching and direction needed to deliver what is needed to feed those in need in our community. We look forward to continued partnership with her in the years to come.
