Tag: Mid-South Food Bank

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Music Music Blog

Dead tribute raises awareness & donations for MIFA

If there is a rule book for Memphis music, the following are surely included: Memphis bands share members, and they love tribute shows like nothing else.

From the recently released, Luther Dickinson-led Sun Records tribute, Red Hot: A Memphis Celebration of Sun Records to Graham Winchester’s “Memphis Does Bowie” show, to last year’s star-studded lineup for the Talking Heads tribute concert, musicians in the Bluff City usually jump at the chance to pay tribute to their heroes and legends — both the local and international varieties. And what else do all the aforementioned concerts and records have in common? They all raised money and awareness to benefit local charities. Proceeds from sales of Red Hot go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, as did the proceeds from the Memphis Does Bowie benefit show. And the Talking Heads tribute benefitted the  National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

So local psychedelic jammers Left Unsung will be honoring a Memphis tradition when they pay tribute to the Grateful Dead by accepting canned goods as admission, for use by the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association (MIFA).

Left Unsung is John Day on guitar and vocals, L.J. Cates on guitar, Michael Shelton on drums and vocals, Chris Hardy on bass, and Nathan Powell on pedal steel. The members of the tribute group all play in other local bands; they met after a Dr. Brown show. “We all kind of share each other around here,” drummer Shelton says. They also share a passion for the Dead, and, as Memphis was somewhat lacking in the long-and-improvisational tribute band department, they set about to remedy what they saw as a serious deficit in the usually lush Memphis music landscape.

But the jam-heavy musicians are more interested in playing music than in earning a buck. The members of Left Unsung have day jobs and gigs in other Bluff City bands, and the Grateful Dead tribute project has more to do with a passion for the Dead than with a paycheck. “It’s never been about the money,” Shelton says. So, after their first two performances, Shelton and the group decided to partner with local organizations to bring attention and donations to charitable causes. “We have an opportunity here with a captive audience and one who is focused on conscious change.” With that in mind, Left Unsung have partnered with MIFA for their upcoming Growlers show.

MIFA is one of the local organizations partnered with the Mid-South Food Bank – an organization that typically sees a “food drought” in the summer as donations slow down until the next school year (see article below). MIFA is the organization behind the Meals on Wheels program, which delivers nutritious lunches daily to senior citizens. “We want to remind [the audience] that we have this service in the community,” Shelton explains.
As for what to expect at the Growlers show, Shelton says the band has been steadily adding songs to the set list since their last performance at the Cove. “We focus on learning songs that not only span the band’s discography from the ’60s and onward, but also on varying styles of structure through playing songs like ‘Brokedown Palace’ and ‘Dark Star’ all the way to ‘Casey Jones’ and ‘Scarlet Begonias.’”

Shelton says the band intends to perform only every two months, with the intention of keeping the shows special – and giving the musicians time to learn new songs. They plan on adding 15 or so songs to their repertoire for each new performance so that, much like the concerts of the Grateful Dead themselves, no two shows will be the same. “Our goal is to keep the crowd guessing about what we’ll play at each show,” Shelton says. “We value learning well-known songs as well as deep-cut, obscure originals from the band. We keep an integral focus on transitioning and improvising through songs throughout our sets, so the music flows similar to the way Grateful Dead’s sets flowed. We’ll be dropping some newly learned songs at Growlers and will continue to expand our song base every show we play.”

Left Unsung Grateful Dead tribute and MIFA benefit at Growlers, Saturday, July 29th at 9 p.m. $5 or two canned goods.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Power of the People

While you and your family were enjoying the Thanksgiving weekend, hundreds of people wrongly spent the holiday at Shelby County jail, literally lost in the system, due to a new, malfunctioning computer records program.

Just City, a Memphis nonprofit group concerned with improving our criminal justice system, filed suit against Sheriff Bill Oldham on behalf of an inmate who spent 11 days in jail after being picked up on a traffic stop. The inmate was not informed of the charges against him, and it took nearly two weeks to get him out.

Many other inmates were kept in jail unlawfully, even after they’d posted bail, due to failures in the new system. Without Just City’s efforts to shine a light on the problem, most of us would never have known about it.

And while most of us were enjoying an evening out or a night at home watching the Grizzlies last week, a couple dozen citizens met at the Abe Goodman Clubhouse in Overton Park to discuss ways to fight the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plans to drill wells in our pristine Memphis Sand aquifer. TVA’s original plans called for using wastewater to cool its new plant. The change of plans to instead tap our aquifer for that purpose were made without public input. Without the Sierra Club raising the alarm, most of us would have never known of the problem, and TVA would have quietly drilled wells into our fresh water.

These are just two examples that demonstrate the power that can be wielded by activist, concerned citizens. Another, of course, was the Save the Greensward movement, which, after a prolonged battle, ultimately resolved the long-festering issue of Memphis Zoo parking on public parkland.

I could list dozens more examples of citizen involvement in tackling the many issues we face — endemic poverty, lack of legal representation, animal services, public transportation (see this week’s cover story), literacy, women’s rights, education. You name the issue, and there is probably a group of concerned citizens working to improve the situation.

We owe them all our thanks. These are folks who recognize that change — real change — only comes from a commitment to volunteer one’s time, effort, and money. Governments, at any level, can only do so much. And it looks like for the next few years our state and federal governments are going to be run by folks who don’t believe government can do much of anything, except cut taxes and privatize government services to siphon taxpayer money to corporate interests.

And to make it worse, we have a president-elect who appears to spend most of his spare time watching television and reacting to it on Twitter. In the past few days, he’s spent every spare moment criticizing the media, insulting individual reporters, and baselessly claiming that millions of votes were cast illegally. And this is the man who won the election.

At some point, the grownups in the GOP are going to have to acknowledge that a horrible mistake has been made. We’ve elected a man who bypasses daily intelligence briefings but doesn’t miss a night (or morning) of CNN or Fox News, a man whose byzantine world-wide business connections will present daily conflict-of-interest potential, and a man whose mental stability is clearly questionable.

Though I truly hope I’m wrong, I fear we are in for a chaotic near future. Which is why organizations like Just City, the Sierra Club, MIFA, Mid-South Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Literacy Mid-South, and countless others I could name are more important now than ever before. An involved, organized citizenry can mobilize more quickly to speak truth to power and stand up to injustice and government overreach.

I believe power will need to be spoken to — loudly and vociferously — in the year to come. Stay woke.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

The Mid-South Food Bank is reinventing itself.

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

I never planned to cry at the Mid-South Food Bank — but that’s exactly what happened.

We were standing inside the distribution warehouse on Dudley. It’s a big, industrial space — like Costco but without price tags. While forklifts honked in the background, chief operating officer Peder Brue told me about the Food Bank’s new backpack program.

Here’s how it works: On Fridays, hungry children at Shelby County Schools are sent home with donated backpacks containing six full meals’ worth of shelf-stable, single-serve food items. On Monday, they bring the empty backpacks back to school, and the process starts all over again.

I wasn’t getting it. All right, I thought, these kids don’t have enough to eat. But why single-serve and shelf-stable? Why the runaround with the backpacks? It all sounded unnecessary — and unnecessarily expensive — to me.

Brue explained: “Yes, it’s more expensive, but the food has to be single-serve and shelf-stable because many of these kids live in homes without electricity. We give it to them in backpacks so that it isn’t obviously food and therefore doesn’t carry a stigma. The Food Bank knows from hard experience that many of these children would rather go hungry than be seen accepting charity.”

That wrecked me. Being hungry is hard enough, but can you imagine refusing food so that you won’t get picked on?

On the flipside, it’s nice to think that we can respect these kids as human beings despite the fact that they don’t have enough to eat. For me, it drives home the point that I may be a well-meaning person, but there’s a lot I don’t know.

“People talk about handouts and welfare queens,” says Food Bank CEO Estella Mayhue-Greer. “The truth is, the person we serve is the person sitting next to you at work. It’s the person in the next pew at church.

“We serve people who work,” she adds, with conviction. “We are the safety net.”

Justin Fox Burks

Volunteers

The Mid-South Food Bank is in the process of reinventing itself. They’re already one of the biggest food banks in the country, feeding about 220,000 people in 31 counties around Memphis. But in the coming year, they plan to grow their capacity by 35 percent and distribute an additional 6 million pounds of food.

“That may sound like hocus pocus, but we can do it,” says Brue. “All we have to do is leverage our processes and our buying power.

“We want to be the Amazon of food banks,” he continues.

Obviously, that involves securing more donations, both financial and material. It also means focusing their efforts on Memphis’ most vulnerable populations: groups like hungry children and home-bound seniors who can’t walk. For example, over the coming year, the Food Bank aims to triple the size of its backpack program, from 1,200 to 4,000 backpacks each week.

The need is certainly there. In 2010, Gallup ranked Memphis the most food-insecure major city in America, with 26 percent of residents saying that at some point in the past year, they couldn’t afford to buy food for their families. Among the city’s 77 low-income census tracts, only seven have access to a full-service supermarket.

Perhaps not coincidentally, these food deserts also suffer some of the highest rates of poverty, disease, and violence in the region.

“No one should have to go hungry,” says Mayhue-Greer. “But for me, food is also an economic development issue. Just think of all the human capital in this city that is tied up because of insufficient access to healthy food.”

I decided to try some of the food. Because the truth is, if I were a hungry senior who couldn’t walk, this would be my Thanksgiving dinner.

As you might expect, the fruit cup was awesome. Grapes, pineapples, peaches. I mean, come on, who doesn’t love a fruit cup? The canned chicken I wasn’t as crazy about. It was salty with a lot of preservatives. Where I finally hit my stride was the chili with beans. Admittedly, not the best chili I’ve ever eaten. But it had a nice beef flavor and with crumbled Ritz crackers, it was downright tasty.

Going into the holidays, I’m riding high. I get to worry about gifts and travel because my food situation is squared away. But all around me, 400,000 Mid-Southerners aren’t so lucky. This December, I’m thankful to the Mid-South Food Bank for the wake-up call. This year it’s “those people,” but next year it could be me.

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We Recommend We Recommend

Afternoon Delight Burlesque Show at Crosstown Arts

To borrow a line from ’70s-era hitmakers, the Starland Vocal Band, “Everything’s a little clearer in the light of day.” Sure, burlesque shows usually don’t start bumping and grinding ’til deep in the middle of the late night, but who doesn’t look forward to a little afternoon delight now and again?

The Afternoon Delight burlesque is a benefit for the Mid-South Food Bank, showcasing the skinful talent shake-show vets Cherie Cheezcake, Mai Oui, and Vivica Noir. The complete roster reads like a who’s who of Memphis’ titillatingest titillators. The event is hosted by Memphis comic Katrina Coleman and climaxes with what is being described as a “shimmy contest.”

“Worms wiggle,” Coleman says, trying to distinguish the shimmy from jiggles and bounces. “And you shake when you’re cold. A shimmy has a point to it. A good shimmy involves eye contact, a smile, and moving what your mama gave you.” While a proper shimmy may be enhanced by fringe, feathers, beads, and other things that sparkle and catch light, Coleman doesn’t think burlesque attire is necessary to perform quality work.

“It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing,” she says, evoking the spirit of Martha and the Vandellas. “I’ve seen good shimmies performed in an oversized Tweety Bird T-shirt. If you need samples of what a good shimmy is, go to YouTube and find some of those old Motown girl bands. They did it right.”

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News The Fly-By

Leadership Memphis Acquires Volunteer Mid-South

More than 316,000 Memphians volunteered throughout the community in 2013, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service. And now, following a merger, the leading local organization in connecting volunteers with nonprofits is hoping to bolster those numbers by making volunteerism even easier.

Leadership Memphis announced earlier this month that it acquired Volunteer Mid-South, an organization that has connected people to volunteer opportunities over the past 40 years.

The acquisition has provided the nonprofit with a new name: Volunteer Memphis. And a facelift is soon to follow.

Leadership Memphis CEO David Williams said the acquisition would bring forth an expansion of Volunteer Mid-South’s Corporate Volunteer Council (CVC), a group of business and corporate representatives who promote community volunteerism. The new venture will also provide specialized training for volunteer management and connect people, via the internet, to volunteer opportunities best suitable for their interests.

“I think the impact [of acquiring Volunteer Mid-South is] going to be profound in terms of advocacy and awareness for volunteers,” Williams said. “We hope to create an easier way for people to connect and engage with their community through volunteerism, but also through volunteer leadership. Ask any nonprofit that relies on volunteers to help fulfill its mission, and they would be able to say how much those volunteers mean to them and the difference that they make in the community.”

Leadership Memphis is presently meeting with stakeholders, CVC members, and nonprofits to establish stronger methods to increase recruitment of organizations that rely heavily on volunteers for sustainability.

Leadership Memphis plans to assign a full-time director to Volunteer Memphis by March. Additional staff will be provided sometime thereafter.

By acquiring Volunteer Mid-South, Leadership Memphis has now become the local affiliate for Points of Light. The international volunteer movement serves as a hub to connect people globally to opportunities offered by nonprofits within their communities. Former U.S. President George H. W. Bush established Points of Light in 1990.

At the Mid-South Food Bank, volunteers help stock shelves in the organization’s Agency Mart, fill backpacks with meals for children, prepare and serve meals in the Kids Café, and assist with administrative duties.

Last year alone, around 11,000 people contributed approximately 40,000 hours of services to the Food Bank.

“Our volunteers are vital to what we do,” said Paula Rushing, manager of volunteer services at the Food Bank. “We have a very limited staff. We could not do this work without our volunteers.”

The Food Bank provides those impacted by food insecurity with nourishing meals, education, and advocacy. Each week, a reported 21,000 people rely on the nonprofit.

Like the Food Bank, the Humane Society of Memphis & Shelby County receives assistance from volunteers. Locals help with building maintenance, walking dogs, cat socialization, administrative work, and arranging and orchestrating fund-raising events.

“We really couldn’t do everything without the help of our volunteers,” said Linda Larrabee, volunteer manager at the Humane Society. “We probably have 250 volunteers at any given time. We run strictly on donations from the community. We’re limited in our staff. They help us get our animals adopted, keep our building cleaned, and provide foster homes to animals. They really are invaluable to us.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Mid-South Food Bank Increasing Reach With Food Insecurity

With the holiday season well underway, donating to local food banks is on the minds of many. But the Mid-South Food Bank might not need your unwanted cans of syrupy fruit, sugary sodas, or bags of potato chips.

That’s because the food bank has set a new challenge of not just assisting those who are hungry for food, but also those who are hungry for nutrition.

The Mid-South Food Bank provides food to those in need in the Memphis area and surrounding counties, but the organization has expanded its mission to include “food insecurity,” which deals more with the nutritional quality of food.

Food insecurity refers to those who only have access to food that has little or no nutritional value or is over-processed, like chips and soda.

Shelley Alley, the chief development officer of the Mid-South Food Bank, said food insecurity in the Mid-South has helped the organization expand. The organization serves an average of about 23,000 people each month in 31 counties in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

“At any given time, people don’t have enough access to nutritional food,” Alley said. “We’ve gotten away from ‘hungry,’ although we still use it, but ‘food insecurity’ is a little broader. There are around 405,000 people in those 31 counties who are food insecure — about one in five. We’re impacting a lot of people, but there’s still a lot of room to grow.”

Right now, 250 partners with the Mid-South Food Bank are working to make sure that families in the area are not just eating but are eating well.

“We do food distribution. We have partner agencies — that can be pantries, soup kitchens. If they are a partner agency of us, then they are allowed to order from us,” Alley said. “The food is free to them, but they pay a small handling fee, which is on average less than 50 cents per pound. That basically just covers our cost when we deliver the food and bring it in.”

The most efficient ability the food bank has is its buying power. Alley said donating money to the Mid-South Food Bank gives them the ability to purchase produce, meat, and fresh items that may not be able to be donated.

“When a dollar is donated to us, we can provide three meals with that dollar,” Alley said. “When donating food, we try to tell them to look at the meat proteins, like canned tuna [and] chunky soup, then canned vegetables, and canned fruit in 100 percent fruit juice. Sometimes we do get snack foods and condiments, and while those are needed, they don’t have much nutrition. We try to provide nutritious food. Our goal is for at least 80 percent of the food we distribute to be nutritious, and we’re hitting at 85 percent right now.”

Alley said she believes that hunger can be solved, but the issue takes a community effort.

“We’re on track this fiscal year to distribute 16 million pounds of food, which is amazing, but when you look at the need, we really need to be hitting closer to 25 million pounds,” Alley said. “We are very fortunate of the community support that we receive, especially during the holiday season, but there’s always more need.”

Categories
Calling the Bluff Music

Locally Designed Shoe Helps Fight Hunger In the Mid-South

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Memphian Edward Bogard has designed a shoe that will help fight hunger. Every pair of his latest SoGiv shoes sold will provide a local hungry kid with 120 meals. The shoes were designed exclusively for the Mid-South Food Bank’s upcoming Miles for Meals Walk, Run and Roll event.

The Espadrille-inspired shoe will be revealed during a pre-launch event on Thursday, June 12th at Wish (2157 Central). The pre-launch, which will last from 6 to 8:30 p.m., will be presented on behalf of Bogard’s nonprofit organization SoGiv.

The event will feature live music from hip-hop artist Knowledge Nick and reggae artist Juju Bushman. Representatives from the Food Bank will also be in attendance to discuss its partnership with SoGiv.

“We’ve created a SoGiv/[Food Bank] inspired shoe to raise awareness and fight hunger in the Mid-South,” Bogard said. “For every pair sold, one will be given to a local child in need while also providing [them with] 120 meals.”

Everyone who participates in Miles for Meals and raises a donation of $60 or more will receive a pair of shoes. The shoe resembles the Espadrille design and boasts the Food Bank’s logo on the back, and SoGiv’s signature “Continent 2 Continent” logo on the outside.

Bogard said he aspires to raise $15,000 for the Food Bank through the limited edition shoe while donating 500 pairs or more to local children in need.

The shoe is one of the latest efforts of SoGiv, a nonprofit organization that designs and sells shoes to raise and donate money towards combating one of its 18 identified causes. SoGiv causes include cancer, HIV/AIDS, heart disease, obesity, animal cruelty, world hunger, and several others.

“One of my favorite parts about SoGiv is that while it is a global initiative, I love the transparency and the impact that we make locally benefiting kids and the homeless right here in Memphis and across the Mid-South,” Bogard said. “So if you’re in Orange Mound or Binghampton, you get to see the tangible impact that we make when you see a kid walking with a pair of SoGiv shoes on. That’s a pretty awesome feeling to know that your donation really went towards the greater good and helping someone in need.”

Miles for Meals is an annual event. This year, it will be held Saturday, September 27th at Audubon Park (4145 Southern Ave). It starts at 8:30 a.m. The event’s goal is to raise 150,000 meals. With every dollar, three meals can be provided to kids in need.

To find out more information on the shoe or event, click here SoGiv.org

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Memphis Gaydar News

LGBT Advocacy Groups Fight Against Hateful Ad With Food Drive

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In response to a full-page, anti-gay ad that ran in The Commercial Appeal last week, a group of LGBT advocacy organizations have begun a food drive for the Mid-South Food Bank.

The anonymous organization behind the ad, known only as Memphis Churches of Christ, reportedly paid around $15,000 for the spot. Rather than raise money to buy a pro-equality, counter-ad, a handful of LGBT groups are asking supporters to make a donation to the food bank.

“The content of the ads is deeply offensive, but I remain a firm believer in the First Amendment right to free speech. While this group is entitled to say what they want, most people reject the divisiveness of the ad’s message because they support inclusion, fairness, decency, equality and diversity in Memphis,” said Jonathan Cole of the Tennessee Equality Project. “It’s hard to watch churches and other religious organizations spending tithes and church offerings on hateful advertising rather than benefit their church members or assist those living in poverty in our city.”

“Our organizations have criticized churches who spend money to demean us by suggesting that they focus on caring for the poor and feeding the hungry,” said Will Batts, executive director of the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center. “In response to recent attacks on our community, we’re putting our money where our mouths are and the mouths of those who go hungry. We shall meet hatred with love for our friends and neighbors.”

They are calling on people to make donations of food or money by November 9th. Donations may be made online. Food may be dropped off at the Mid-South Food Bank at 239 S. Dudley between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday or 8 a.m. to noon on Friday.

Needed items include canned meats (tuna, stews, chicken and dumplings, chili, Spam), soups, peanut butter, canned fruits, canned veggies, canned 100% fruit juice, and any non-perishable item. No glass containers are accepted.