A Letter From MANNA’s CEO
Dear MANNA Community,
The last weeks and months have been revealing—showing who we are and who we aren’t yet. There have been too many heartbreaking moments.
We’ve been given little choice about seeing the harsh realities of our country’s current state even when so many of us are working together to make things better. We are often witness to both simultaneously. When our neighbors are in line desperate to find food, we see the ugliness of avoidable suffering. There is so much more work to be done, hard work, but through all of this I have found that living with purpose right now is such a gift.
This time has shined a glaring spotlight on the grip that hunger has had on our country for years, and with this spotlight has come a wider understanding of its root causes and consequences. At MANNA, we have seen a 68% increase in people needing food since before the pandemic and have been feeding over 100,000 people a month with the help of our partners and people like you. At the same time, we are facing the daunting reality of needing to move to a sustainable and larger facility to meet the long term needs of our region.
The good news is that there are tangible ways to feed people desperate for food today and prevent hunger tomorrow if we work together, and you give me every hope that this is possible. Although 2021 has certainly not been a dream come true so far, we will see our way through this. Thank you to each and every one of you who found your own way to make our community a more resilient, loving, and humane place to live in 2020. As we look forward, let’s use what we learned in this transformative year to make sure that we forge a better future for everyone in our mountains and beyond.
Hannah Randall
CEO of MANNA FoodBank
