Today I met with the two pantries that are officially on board and ready to make the HUB network a success. We also had the pastor of Bowling Green UMC in the meeting as well. The four of us talked about where we hope to go from here, what needs to happen, who needs to be involved in the long term and what some of the potential pitfalls are for what we're doing in the county.
The main thing, we determined was our key piece for this program to move forward as a success, is the establishment of a database where HUBs can track the participants in the program. This will reduce the amount of 'double dipping' and abuses to the system that could take place. While we hope that people would not abuse the system, we do know the temptation is there and in some cases it is easier to go to a pantry than to go shopping at the grocery store. We also discussed that we would rather as a network empower people instead of enable them. Encourage people to put sweat equity into what they are receiving, instead of always looking for a handout. One of the questions that comes to mind of me, what about those folks who are in some way disabled, or whatever else the case may be. So, yes, there may be some times when we have to make exceptions about how many times and at what level we give.
We made a huge amount of progress and set a date for our next meeting with set goals ahead of us as to what needs to happen before then.
preparing, planning, and uniting the food in Caroline.
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