Food Share Director To Retire After 30-Years

Nancy Mitchell (left) and Shirley King (right) Photo by Casey Miller

After three decades at the helm of Food Share of Lincoln County, Executive Director Nancy Mitchell is preparing to retire at the end of the month, handing the reins to longtime food banking professional Shirley King. The transition comes as the organization pushes to expand mobile food distribution, increase fresh food capacity, and raise money to renovate a much larger warehouse on Newport’s north end.

Mitchell, who has led Food Share for 30 years, said the organization has always focused on more than just filling cupboards. “We’ve seen a lot of need in the community, and we’ve been here to provide support for people who need food assistance,” she said. “And we do a little bit of nutrition education too… teaching people how to cook and read recipes and read food labels and introduce them to the farmers’ market. In addition to helping somebody with actual food, we like to do some of those wraparound services.”

During a recent “Coffee with Kiera” conversation recorded at Food Share Mitchell reflected on more than two decades of working together on local hunger relief and community outreach.

Leadership Transition

Mitchell introduced incoming executive director Shirley King, who joined Food Share in December and brings more than 20 years of experience in food banking in California.

King said her decision to step into the executive director role came after spending several months learning the programs, staff, and partner agencies.

“I’ve always been really, really passionate about making sure people have food. It’s such a basic need, and something that I feel like shouldn’t be something that people actually have to be concerned about,” King said. “After working here for several months and really getting to know the programs and the community and the staff and all the partnering agencies, I feel really, really good about helping bring Food Share forward because there’s much more work that we’re wanting to do.” “I am honored to be the torch bearer now,” she added.

Expanding mobile food access

Mitchell said Food Share remains a small nonprofit compared to larger food banks around Oregon, but has steadily expanded its reach, especially through mobile and on-site delivery models designed to remove barriers for working families and seniors.

“In the years that I’ve been here, we have expanded programs. We have expanded the amount of food access points for the community,” she said. Traditional food pantries and community meal sites remain “our first line of defense,” Mitchell noted, but Food Share has seen strong results from mobile deliveries to low-income housing complexes.

“We have implemented several deliveries to low-income housing apartment complexes,” she said. “The food gets delivered to the housing complexes and can serve up to 50 households during a distribution, and that removes a lot of barriers for transportation, perhaps childcare, for a family that needs to visit a pantry.”

Bringing food directly to where people live also avoids the problem of limited pantry hours, which can be especially hard on working families. Kiera, who also works with the Salvation Army of Lincoln County, underscored that point, noting that many food pantry users are employed but still struggling.

“A lot of the folks who utilize food pantries and need that food are working people,” Morgan pointed out. “By the time you get the bills paid, a lot of times there’s not quite enough left over to feed your family. Food becomes that very last bill that you pay.”

King called mobile pantries “a more efficient way of moving food,” especially fresh items.

“Instead of having to make multiple stops and do several kinds of different deliveries, having it just be a one-stop shop where we can take that product and give it out immediately makes a lot more sense and a lot less food waste,” she said. “Expanding upon that and actually having more fresh product in our distributions will make a big difference as well.”

Refrigeration area at new warehouse (photo by Casey Miller)

How Food Share fits into Oregon’s food bank network

King outlined the structure of food distribution in Oregon, with the Oregon Food Bank at the top. “Oregon Food Bank is the main primary food bank for the entire state of Oregon,” she said. “Under their direction and their food distribution, there are 21 other distributing food banks, and under those food banks, there are multiple partner agencies that are actually responsible for direct distribution.”

“In Lincoln County, we currently have about 24 partner agencies under Food Share,” King said, including backpack programs, food pantries, meal sites, Head Start, and local shelters. “Without them, we would be completely at a loss because it takes a village to actually distribute the food.” Despite a staff of just five people, Food Share moved more than a million pounds of food last year.

King said Food Share relies on several financial streams to keep things going: local donations; “Fresh Alliance” retail recovery from local markets; USDA “TEFAP” commodities that come through Oregon Food Bank; and, increasingly, direct truckload purchases.

“For the first time, we’ve actually purchased truckloads of food, which we never used to have to do before,” she said.

Four meals for every dollar

Mitchell emphasized that while Food Share values food drives, financial donations go much farther because of the organization’s purchasing power. “Our food banking system partners say that usually you can leverage about four meals per dollar,” she said. “We never want to discourage food drives… but we do like to emphasize that funds do stretch further with our purchasing abilities,” she added.

New warehouse and capital campaign

A major focus now is a large, older warehouse on the north end of Newport that Food Share purchased to dramatically expand its capacity, especially for fresh food. The building has a long history as a distribution hub for several companies, but needs extensive upgrades.

“It’s a solid, solid building, and it’s large,” Mitchell said. “But there’s a lot of upgrades that need to happen, especially electrical. There needs a new roof and new interior build out, and we need to replace the existing cold storage in there, because it’s also as old as the building.”

Currently, limited cold storage at the existing site means Food Share sometimes has to turn down fresh produce, dairy, and meat. “We aren’t even able to accept all of our allocations of fresh product because we have such limited cold storage,” King said. “One of the big things is to refurbish this warehouse so that we actually have an ample amount of cold storage.”

Mitchell said the new warehouse is nearly three times the size of the current facility, with cold storage at least doubling.

“We will be embarking on a capital campaign to raise the money for the rest of the project,” she said. Phase one includes a new roof, electrical upgrades, HVAC, and structural safety work so the building can be safely occupied. A major grant from the Roundhouse Foundation is helping launch that phase. “They’re wonderful. They’re so supportive of rural communities and food insecurity programs,” Mitchell said.

Later phases will replace refrigeration and build office space so all staff can move to the new location. The current Food Share building is owned by the organization and may eventually be used to help pay off remaining project costs. Welcome to Shirley, the new director. To learn more or to make a donation to help Food Share you can go to their website at Food Share of Lincoln County - Serving all of Lincoln County, OR.