Baltimore Regional Food Assistance Challenges and Solutions

It’s estimated that up to 1 in every 3 Baltimore City residents will need food supplements by June.

2-1-1 of Central Maryland has received 1,496 calls for Food Assistance since April 20th, consistently one of the top needs presented along with Health Care. Of the Food Assistance calls, 71% come from Baltimore City and 22% from Baltimore County and are primarily about Emergency Food, Food Outlets, and nutrition-related Public Assistance Programs.

To meet this need, the City is implementing an Emergency Food Stability Response Plan, with Baltimore County implementing a similar strategy (see more details for the City here and for the County here). Using a community-driven approach, both City and County are leveraging schools, recreation centers and strategic nonprofits to help with the distribution.

Along the way, they have identified some challenges and limitations, namely, serving immigrant families, supporting smaller community-based nonprofits and engaging the local economy and its restaurants, in meeting long-term needs.

Join us for a deeper dive into the Food Assistance landscape. In addition to current situation and challenges seen by our City and County partners, we’ll also hear about the Fund for Educational Excellence’s COVID-19 Food Stability Fund and will discuss possible solutions and ideas for collaboration.

Our speakers will be:

• Tisha Edwards, Director, Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success
• Holly Freishtat, Director, Food Policy, Baltimore City
• Elisabeth Sachs, Director of Government Reform and Strategic Initiatives, Office of Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski, Jr.
• Roger Schulman, President and CEO, The Fund for Educational Excellence; and
• Kari Snyder, Executive Director, Southeast Community Development Corporation.

Other speakers may be added.

For more background, please view the following previously presented information (sign-in required)

• COVID Call Summary (4/24) including remarks by Tisha Edwards and Elisabeth Sachs on the City's and County's Food Stability response.
• Summary from the 7th COVID-19 Funders Response and Collaboration Call (4/17) as well as slides from the Baltimore Co. Department of Aging about food access.
• Notes from Conversation with Tina Hike-Hubbard, Baltimore City Schools (4/14), See p. 2 and the Q&A.
• Resources from the 6th Funders Call on COVID-19 (4/10), including a summary and slides about Baltimore City’s Emergency Food Response.
• Program Resources from Older Adult Nonprofit Partnership Meeting (4/2), highlighting Baltimore City Division of Aging’s response