Beaver County Partnership Meeting Notes Community College of ...

Beaver County Partnership Meeting Notes
Community College of Beaver County
December 2, 2011 at 9 a.m.
Attendees:
• Debbie Ahern, CONTACT Beaver Valley
• Ruthanne Bentley, Beaver County Office on Aging
• Representative Jim Christiana
• Sandra Curry, Franklin Center of Aliquippa
• Denise Donnelly, Alliance for Consumer Protection
• Kim Dodson, Southwestern Pennsylvania Food Security Partnership
• Janet Elder, Southwestern Pennsylvania Food Security Partnership
• Elizabeth Focer, Columbia Gas
• Brian Hayden, Community College of Beaver County
• Cheryl King, Aliquippa Weed and Seed
• Major Richard Lyle, Salvation Army
• Cindy Matthews, Representative Matzie’s Office
• Norah Miller, Housing and Homeless Coalition of Beaver County
• Cynthia Moore, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
• Cadet Olivia Munn, Salvation Army
• Vic Papale, Southwestern Pennsylvania Food Security Partnership
• Susan Pawkovich, Housing Authority of the County of Beaver
• Marnie Schilken, Gateway Health Plan
• Bruce Simmeth, United Way of Beaver County
• Richard Smith, Center for Hope
• Susan Smith, Franklin Center of Aliquippa
• Beverly Sullivan, Beaver County Office on Aging
• Ron Wallace, Church in the Round
I. Introductions
• Participants introduced themselves and told about their organizations.
II. Comprehensive Plan Objectives, Janet Elder:
• Reviewed the 5 objectives of the Partnership.
• Stated that the meeting’s focus would be on Objective #1: Increase access to and
utilization of public and private food assistance programs.
III. Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank Outreach Presentation, Cynthia Moore:
• Discussed the Outreach activities of GPCFB.
• Stated that GPCFB would like to partner with local organizations to develop the
Summer Food Program.
• Pointed out SNAP enrollment is completed by GPCFB staff in Beaver County.
• Produce to People distributions are done at Salvation Armies in Beaver Falls and
Aliquippa through GPCFB.

• A meeting participant asked if the Produce to People distribution was
available for individuals or if it is limited to families. Beverly Sullivan of
Beaver County Office on Aging stated that the program is open to both
individuals and families. Everyone receives the same items at the distribution.
• Marnie Schilken of Gateway Health Plan asked if the SNAP Community Partner
list could be added to the Partnership website. Janet Elder and Kim Dodson
stated that it can be added. Kim will post the Community Partner list to the
Partnership website.
IV. Janet Elder showed a CBS News Video about food insecurity.
V. Focus on Comprehensive Plan Objective #1: Small and Large Group Activities
• Small Group Activity—Utilizing the Beaver County Scorecard, each table
identified programs/initiatives that they thought should be the focus of the next
year’s activities.
________________________________________________________________________
Table 1 Participants:
• Sandra Curry, Franklin Center
• Denise Donnelly, Alliance for Consumer Protection
• Cheryl King, Aliquippa Weed and Seed
• Cynthia Moore, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
• Susan Smith, Franklin Center
Strategies:
• Communication Disconnect—It is difficult for agencies and recipients to find out
what programs and services are available.
• Create opportunity to prevent people from utilizing programs long term
• Make the process simpler.
• Have people volunteer as a way of earning their food.
• Help people to grow their own food.
• Get the true facts out about who the hungry are and get more accurate statistics
• Issues with farmers’ markets: access for seniors, transportation issues, pride issues
• Innovation in food delivery to rural areas
________________________________________________________________________
Table 2 Participants:
• Major Richard Lyle, Salvation Army
• Cadet Olivia Munn, Salvation Army
• Bruce Simmeth, United Way of Beaver County
• Richard Smith, Center for Hope

Strategies
• Re-establishment of The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP)
• Better coordination between food pantries
• Increase funding for SNAP.
• Preserve charitable deductions tax credits.
________________________________________________________________________
Table 3 Participants:
• Ron Wallace, Church in the Round
• Cindy Matthews, Representative Matzie’s Office
• Norah Miller, Housing and Homeless Coalition of Beaver County
• Brian Hayden, Community College of Beaver County
• Susan Pawkovich, Housing Authority of the County of Beaver
• Marnie Schilken, Gateway Health Plan
• Elizabeth Focer, Columbia Gas
• Beverly Sullivan, Beaver County Office on Aging
• Ruthanne Bentley, Beaver County Office on Aging
Strategies:
• Accurate list of food resources with links to websites.
• Easily accessible location, easy to update
• Contact to update regularly
• Beaver County Collaborative Action Network (CAN), Franklin Center, Together We
Flourish
• Provider and consumer education
• Need to focus on school breakfast-scorecard indicates serious gap
• Beaver Valley Intermediate Unit—Assess current programs.
• Fewer numbers of students accessing school breakfast program than lunch.
• Include high school students.
• Aging/Vouchers
• Not enough funding to give farmer’s market vouchers to all who request them.
• Redemption rates are 93% for seniors and 30% for WIC
• Becoming better consumers—smarter shopping and bartering
___________________________________________________________________________
• Report Out to Large Group
Group1:

• There is a communication disconnect—People don’t know how to get the
services/help they need.
• People should be giving back to their communities when they receive.
• Make the process simpler
• The face of hunger is changing
• Difficult to get food to rural areas.
• Seniors have difficulty getting to Farmers’ Markets/Produce to People distributions.
• Could develop delivery to rural areas.
Group 2:
• TEFAP needs to continue/be restored.
• Better coordination needed between food pantries. The right hand does not always
know what the left hand is doing. What occurs in one area of the county is often
different from what occurs in another area.
• Advocate for continuation of tax credits for people and businesses that make
donations to non-profits (pantries, food banks).
Group 3:
• Students missing from the table. School breakfast underutilized. Perhaps meet
with someone from IU because IU interacts with many schools throughout the
county.
• Senior and WIC farmer’s market vouchers are under-utilized—find ways to get
people to the markets and utilize them.
• Educate people on how to utilize what they get from P2P and farmer’s markets.
• Make sure that information is accurate on our websites and resources.
• Continued Large Group Discussion on Beaver County Partnership Priorities
• Susan Smith of the Franklin Center stated that it is difficult to find information on
the Beaver County CAN website.
• Norah Miller of the Housing and Homeless Coalition of Beaver County said
that the website has been recently updated and that providers can let each other
know when information is outdated.
• Brian Hayden of CCBC stated that consumers need to be responsible for
gathering information and utilizing programs as well.
• Marnie Schilken of Gateway Health Plan said that schools provide a good structural
framework for developing anti-hunger programs.
• Denise Donnelly of the Alliance for Consumer Protection stated that there are people
who are not comfortable with utilizing food assistance programs, but need them. We
need to find ways to get the people who are not using the programs because of pride
to use the programs. How can we get people who feel humiliated to utilize what is
available?
• Janet Elder stated that going to schools would allow us to begin helping the
students, and then educate the families about what services are available. There

are many misconceptions about school breakfast programs on the part of school
personnel. If we make these programs important issues for the schools, then they
will be addressed by schools.
• How are we going to get accurate information on available programs? Norah Miller
stated that two agencies work around information and referral. Franklin Center and
Beaver County CAN. We need to make sure that they have correct information.
• Susan Smith—Together We Flourish also developed a resource guide. Agencies
can put links to their resource guides on their websites.
• Cynthia Moore: Even if it was a youth program website—something seemingly
unrelated to food security—the program could put a link on its website that says
“Need food assistance?” so that people can find out what’s available.
• Susan Smith stated that when everyone is linking to a certain page, then their
websites become more traveled. As websites become more traveled, then they
will come up in other search engines more often.
• Major Lyle of the Salvation Army knows a superintendent of a school district that he
could attempt to get involved with the Partnership.
• School feeding programs will be focus of group for 2011-2012.
VI. Conclusion
• The next meeting date will be decided upon at a later time.
• Activity will occur between partners and school personnel concerning breakfast
programs in the county and strategies to increase participation.
• Susan Smith stated that we can also meet electronically.