 Dear Friends,
“I’ve never had to ask for help to feed my family.”
“I was once a donor to the Food Bank; now I need their help.”
We heard these words too many times during 2008. As summer approached, families across Central Texas struggled with rising food and fuel prices. These challenges, exacerbated by children being home from school, led to a dramatic increase in new families into the hunger-relief system. Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB) responded with expanded output and our “Wheels of Sharing” Mobile Food Pantry.
With September came the devastation of Hurricane Ike and thousands of evacuees who escaped the storm’s impact evacuating to Central Texas. Again, we responded by serving our Partner Agencies; providing direct distribution from our parking lot on South Congress Avenue to evacuees; and deploying staff, vehicles, food and water to the impacted areas.
Changes in the economy and increased unemployment led us to open the CAFB East Austin Service Center. We continue to partner with 355-plus local food programs to reach even more people. And, we increased the amount of food we distributed by 8 percent, to over 17.4 million pounds—including almost 5 million pounds of fresh produce.
Above all, we’ve worked to ensure that, regardless of what brings people into a Food Bank Partner Agency or program, they receive the nourishment they need.
The challenge continues. We take a brief moment to celebrate our successes but we do so with an eye to the immediate future and the work left undone. Growing food insecurity issues continue to lead to hunger across our service territory. Guided by our current strategic plan, we will continue to improve access to nutritious food; we will engage the community as advocates for sound, common sense anti-hunger polices; and we will invest in increasing our capacity and our partners throughout our service territory.
Together, we reaffirm our core belief that Hunger is Unacceptable as we move toward a hunger-free Central Texas.
Sincerely, | 
