Second Harvest Community Food Bank wants to hear feedback and get ideas as they begin developing their next five-year strategic plan.

Michelle Fagerstone is the Chief Development Officer with Second Harvest. Fagerstone said they are coming up on the end of their three-year strategic plan and are in the process of developing their next five-year plan.

“Part of the work in doing that plan is listening to what our communities that we support have to say to us. We have about 15 set questions that we ask during the session and it ranges from, ‘Do you know any of the programs that Second Harvest does,’ ‘Do you believe there is food insecurity in your community,’ questions like that,” Fagerstone said. “We will look at all those answers, along with all the concerns or the praises that we get at those listening sessions and we will incorporate that then into the develop of our five year plan.”

Fagerstone said during their listening sessions three years ago, they received a lot of feedback about there not being enough fresh produce distributed.

“It just so happened that, at the same time, Mosaic was looking at the Community Connect Foundation and what their goals were going to be and our two goals kind of intersected,” Fagerstone said. “They wanted to get more nutrition out to people and we wanted to get produce out to people. From that combined effort came the Fresh Mobile Pantry. The Fresh Mobile Pantry now goes to 19 communities every single month to distribute fresh produce and lean protein.”  

Upcoming listening sessions:

Leavenworth, Kansas – 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, December 11th, at Catholic Charities of NE KS located at 716 N 5th St.

Atchison, Kansas – 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. on December 13th, at the Salvation Army located at 926 Commercial.

St. Joseph – 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on December 19th, at Riverside Baptist Church at 5401 Mitchell Ave.

For more information, go to the Second Harvest Community Food Bank Facebook page.