Darlene Johnson is much more than MFB’s customer service representative — she’s the ever-smiling, always cheerful face of the food bank to representatives of its many community partners who visit the central warehouse’s Marketplace to pick up food for their pantries.
This report presents a more complete picture of what it means to be food insecure in Maryland. It reviews and interprets available data sets from various resources to better understand how wages, housing, and other indicators of hardship (aka “root causes”) interconnect and ultimately manifest in the form of food insecurity.
A key part of MFB 3.0, our refreshed strategic plan, emphasizes expanding workforce development programs and partnerships that are crucial to not only Maryland’s continued recovery, but its long-term ability to thrive. Some of our Network Partners — including three that you’ll read about here — are already offering these wraparound services. Our Regional Program Directors are working every day to help more of our statewide partners form these kinds of beneficial relationships.
“It takes me back to when I was a child in the inner city where food was a lot scarcer. When your neighbor up the street couldn’t get out or had health issues, so you took what you had and shared with them. To me the food bank is that neighborhood, that village I grew up in. It lets me know that I’m not alone — lets me know that people still care for people.”
To better serve our neighbors in need as rates of food insecurity remain high, we’ve introduced innovative pilot programs to address the root causes of hunger and identify and assist more food-insecure families across Maryland.
Check out the latest local and national news about the Maryland Food Bank and how we’re addressing hunger in our communities.
