Last week, food bankers from 24 Feeding America hunger relief organizations in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma flooded the Central Texas Food Bank’s product recovery area to kick off the Southwest Regional Food Bank Conference.
Thanks to our presenting sponsor Texas Capital Bank, our contributing sponsors Brad Cecil & Associates, Feeding Texas and our partnering sponsors TrueSense Marketing and Feeding America Network Fundraising Services, food bank staff learned best practices in food banking to help make a greater impact on hunger relief.
“Our commitment to joining forces with you to eradicate hunger in all of our communities is a commitment that we take very seriously all throughout our organization,” Texas Capital Bank Senior Vice President, Effie Dennison, said.
The conference began with Feeding Texas’ Executive Director, Celia Cole, reminding attendees about the power of advocacy and the challenges ahead.
TrueSense Marketing Vice President, Jason Wood, wrapped up the evening with tips on storytelling and presented four Food Banks doing notable work on social media, including the Central Texas Food Bank, with a ShareFull Award.
The final day of the conference initiated with an inspiring welcome from Brad Cecil & Associates President, Brad Cecil, prompting Food Banks to continue to do their best with the donations the community entrusts them with.
With four breakout sessions presenting a total of 13 panels, attendees could learn about a variety of topics including advocacy and public policy, development, marketing and volunteering.
To recharge attendees for the afternoon sessions, lunch was sponsored by Texas Capital Bank. During lunch time, Effie presented on how hunger is only a “symptom” of poverty and thanked the food banks for their work in their effort to fight hunger.
“Communities can’t grow and be healthy when the fundamental, basic human need is left unmet,” Effie said. “A community can’t prosper, and that’s why we chose hunger as our global issue across all of our markets and why we’re working with all of our local Food Bank partners.”
In addition to learning from other food bankers, experts in the for profit sector from True Sense Marketing, Brad Cecil & Associates and ProductionFor shared information on their respective field to reinforce food bankers’ skills to help close the hunger gap.
The conference presented food bankers the opportunity to meet and connect with other hunger relief organizations, but it wouldn’t have been possible without our sponsors.
We can’t thank our sponsors, Brad Cecil & Associates, Feeding Texas, TrueSense Marketing and Feeding America Network Fundraising Services, especially our presenting sponsor, Texas Capital Bank, enough for their support in the fight against hunger.
