Karen Belknap, the founder and CEO of Inspired Vision Compassion Center, told members of The Farmlink Project team that she “thought that if I gave children God and education, it would lift this community out of poverty, but I was wrong.” She was an active member of her community’s church and, as a teacher, greatly contributed to the lives of young people in her community in that capacity, but was moved to start Inspired Vision after a particularly troubling experience. She relayed the story of one of her first weeks as a teacher, in which one of her 12-year-old students fainted in the middle of class. She said, “it turned out that she hadn’t eaten in six days. That’s when I knew I had to start a food bank, so that’s how this all began.”
Inspired Vision is located in the most food insecure neighborhood of Dallas, where over 80 percent of residents don’t know where their next meal is coming from. What began in a church parking lot in 2014 has since expanded to a Walmart-size distribution center serving 1,900 families a day. In 2019, Inspired Vision Compassion Center provided groceries to over 243,000 families. Inspired Vision goes far beyond groceries, too—the center also distributes free hygiene products, professional clothing, school supplies, and more.
On Friday, September 18th, The Farmlink Project facilitated a delivery of 33,000 pounds of mangoes to Inspired Vision from Full Harvest, a produce resale platform. The Farmlink Project has partnered with Inspired Vision several times in the past, including 229,000 pounds of potatoes throughout July and August.
As a result of the financial loss that Inspired Vision has suffered with the expiration of a vital grant, Inspired Vision Compassion Center recently lost 30 volunteers. The organization relies heavily on these volunteers to distribute food and other essential goods. If you live in the Dallas area, The Farmlink Project urges you to consider donating your time to help feed your community!
These changes are great. But how’s it all going to be funded?
During the comment process, Farmlink, as well as other food rescue organizations and coalitions, raised critical questions about how the strategy would be funded and, as a result, which measures are feasible. In particular, we hoped for more clarity beyond the draft’s statement that the USDA would use American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act funds and the EPA would use Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds. Of the 86 programs or initiatives reviewed in the final strategy, only 15 are completely new programs announced in the strategy.
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The other 71 are existing programs or initiatives that either already have a food loss and waste focus or that the national strategy has repackaged as food loss and waste solutions. While we had hopes of new, innovative programs being included in the strategy, the good news with these 71 programs is that most, if not all, are already funded, meaning that they are not reliant on an increasingly turbulent Congress for implementation. Of the 15 new programs, which included the EPA’s new consumer education campaign and several new cooperative agreements with land-grant universities, only 2 had specific funding mechanisms. It has become increasingly clear that food rescue organizations and other stakeholders in the food and agriculture space should not consider this strategy as a new rollout of FLW solutions, programs, and funding but rather as an evaluation of the current resources and solutions and how each can be most effectively utilized to achieve the strategy’s goals. In particular, the framing of many of USDA’s programs as FLW solutions offers opportunities to utilize existing funding, data, and infrastructure to solve one of the United States’s most pressing problems.
Whats next?
Now that we have the strategy, it’s time to truly take advantage of the opportunities it presents. In the immediate future at Farmlink, we’re excited to continue optimizing Section 32 as a critical on-farm food loss solution as we anticipate significant surplus recoveries in the fall. As we move forward, we continue to advocate for dignity with food distribution, emphasizing cultural appropriateness and quality in every pound of food we rescue. As outlined in our comments, food rescue organizations are critical stakeholders and thought partners for the agencies. Our inclusion in the strategy as such is an opportunity we are taking full advantage of to help guide federal action to support farmers, feed communities, and heal the planet.
< BackKaren Belknap, the founder and CEO of Inspired Vision Compassion Center, told members of The Farmlink Project team that she “thought that if I gave children God and education, it would lift this community out of poverty, but I was wrong.” She was an active member of her community’s church and, as a teacher, greatly contributed to the lives of young people in her community in that capacity, but was moved to start Inspired Vision after a particularly troubling experience. She relayed the story of one of her first weeks as a teacher, in which one of her 12-year-old students fainted in the middle of class. She said, “it turned out that she hadn’t eaten in six days. That’s when I knew I had to start a food bank, so that’s how this all began.”
Inspired Vision is located in the most food insecure neighborhood of Dallas, where over 80 percent of residents don’t know where their next meal is coming from. What began in a church parking lot in 2014 has since expanded to a Walmart-size distribution center serving 1,900 families a day. In 2019, Inspired Vision Compassion Center provided groceries to over 243,000 families. Inspired Vision goes far beyond groceries, too—the center also distributes free hygiene products, professional clothing, school supplies, and more.
On Friday, September 18th, The Farmlink Project facilitated a delivery of 33,000 pounds of mangoes to Inspired Vision from Full Harvest, a produce resale platform. The Farmlink Project has partnered with Inspired Vision several times in the past, including 229,000 pounds of potatoes throughout July and August.
As a result of the financial loss that Inspired Vision has suffered with the expiration of a vital grant, Inspired Vision Compassion Center recently lost 30 volunteers. The organization relies heavily on these volunteers to distribute food and other essential goods. If you live in the Dallas area, The Farmlink Project urges you to consider donating your time to help feed your community!
Inspired Vision Compassion Center
Dallas, Texas
Karen Belknap, the founder and CEO of Inspired Vision Compassion Center, told members of The Farmlink Project team that she “thought that if I gave children God and education, it would lift this community out of poverty, but I was wrong.” She was an active member of her community’s church and, as a teacher, greatly contributed to the lives of young people in her community in that capacity, but was moved to start Inspired Vision after a particularly troubling experience. She relayed the story of one of her first weeks as a teacher, in which one of her 12-year-old students fainted in the middle of class. She said, “it turned out that she hadn’t eaten in six days. That’s when I knew I had to start a food bank, so that’s how this all began.”
Inspired Vision is located in the most food insecure neighborhood of Dallas, where over 80 percent of residents don’t know where their next meal is coming from. What began in a church parking lot in 2014 has since expanded to a Walmart-size distribution center serving 1,900 families a day. In 2019, Inspired Vision Compassion Center provided groceries to over 243,000 families. Inspired Vision goes far beyond groceries, too—the center also distributes free hygiene products, professional clothing, school supplies, and more.
On Friday, September 18th, The Farmlink Project facilitated a delivery of 33,000 pounds of mangoes to Inspired Vision from Full Harvest, a produce resale platform. The Farmlink Project has partnered with Inspired Vision several times in the past, including 229,000 pounds of potatoes throughout July and August.
As a result of the financial loss that Inspired Vision has suffered with the expiration of a vital grant, Inspired Vision Compassion Center recently lost 30 volunteers. The organization relies heavily on these volunteers to distribute food and other essential goods. If you live in the Dallas area, The Farmlink Project urges you to consider donating your time to help feed your community!
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