Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day which provides me the perfect opportunity to reflect on some things I am thankful for here at the Food Bank. So, in that spirit, let’s get started.

I’m thankful for a wonderful 10th Annual Jewels of Giving event this past Friday night on so many levels. We reached our financial goal! We had over 700 people in attendance who heard the story of the people who need our services. They were each challenged to share that story with their friends and family, building a grass roots awareness that we have hungry people in Benton, Carroll, Madison and Washington counties. The more people we have talking about the issue, the faster we can work together to solve it. Our staff, volunteers and our board of directors worked together to provide an elegant evening. I want to say thank you to each of them for helping make the night a success. A special thank you goes out to our co-hosts for the evening, Megan Crozier of Walmart and Mark Huffman of Unilever. Of course the highlight of my night was presenting the Hunger Hero Award to our founding Executive Director, June Self. I doubt the initial board of directors who hired June to run the Food Bank had any idea of how we would grow over the next 30 years. Much of that growth can be directly traced back to June and her efforts. Over the past year, as we have worked on anniversary projects, I have gotten to know June and truly enjoy her wit and her energy. As I said Friday night, I’m proud to call her a friend.

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I’m thankful for Daniel Boone and Kenneth Medlin of Spectrum Brands. They had the vision of creating a competition between suppliers that has grown to include 28 companies and that raised over 250,000 pounds of food for us. Of course 250,000 pounds of food will go a long way in our mission, but this is also another example of bringing awareness of the problem. I don’t know for sure who won the competition but will be sure to include it next month after the final accounting and celebration takes place.

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I’m thankful for the media support we receive. KHOG hosted their 6th annual turkey drive. KFSM hosted the “Give Where You Live” food drive. KNWA has had us on the local news numerous times to talk about our mission and events we have going on. Each station has consistently supported us with coverage when we have newsworthy events. The Food Bank subscribes to a service called TV Eyes. It monitors television stations then sends me clips of coverage. The past few weeks I get one of these notices nearly every day. This week I have received notices of news coverage about the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank from stations in Butte, Montana; Clarksburg West Virginia; Monterey, California; Lincoln, Nebraska; Youngstown, Ohio; and at least ten other communities spread across the United States. Brad and Kelli Wilborne planned and executed an event called Wakesgiving, which encouraged residents to go wakeboarding in November and incorporated a food drive.

In case you all have forgotten, up until January 2016 I was a newspaper guy and still get up every morning to read the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette as part of my pre-work routine. Coverage of the Food Bank, or one of our partner agencies is often part of that morning read. Our partners at Celebrate Magazine, Citiscapes Magazine, and 3W Magazine all share our stories with their readers.

Simply put, we could not do what we do without the support of the local media.

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I’m thankful for the support and vision of the Food Bank staff and our board of directors. Friday night I publicly announced the formation of a long range strategic plan taking the Food Bank to the year 2025. This plan includes two main vision points:

1: The Northwest Arkansas Food Bank will distribute 11 million meals annually by the year 2025. By achieving this goal, every food insecure resident will have reasonable access to the food he or she needs.

But we want to do more than just distribute food. We want to help people get healthier. To that end…

2: 75% of the foods we distribute will be nutritious foods such as protein, fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and foods lower in sodium and sugar.

Many of you were instrumental in the creation of this strategic plan. I invite anyone interested to come see me to see what we think the future holds for the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank.

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Finally, I want to say how thankful I am for the opportunity to serve in this position. I regularly tell people I feel I was called to this job. January 2, 2016 seems like yesterday, not three years ago. I’ll admit there have been bad days. Days that included problems that seemed insurmountable. But I have never had a day go by without something miraculous happening which confirms the presence of God in our lives and that he is here to help all of us feed the hungry. Thanks to each and every one of you who have been part of this journey I have been on the past few years, and thanks in advance for going on it with me into the future.

Because of you someone will eat today

Kent