1. Addressing Poverty in Santa Barbara County
Maritza | Tracy | Nohemy | Kiah | Ashley
Coach: Lois Mitchell
KIAH:
Welcome everyone! Thank you for being here.
As we first got started in our project, we had several areas within Human Services that we discussed exploring.
Human Services encompasses so many areas. Among them: Homelessness, Veterans Aging Population, Poverty, Dying w/ Dignity, Hunger, Child Abuse, Recidivism, Elder Abuse, Alzheimer’s, Affordable Housing, Intergenerational Issues.
After polling our interests and personal values, we narrowed it down to hunger and poverty particularly focused on young children. However as we dug deeper we realized addressing children in poverty can not be done as a standalone issue...

2. Team’s Approach to Addressing “Poverty”
KIAH:
After the internal scan of our values and interests, we now needed to move into reviewing existing data…
This slide gives you some insight into our process of solving the “Million Dollar Question” - but we’ll cover this as we go along.

3. Impact of Poverty in Santa Barbara County
NOHEMY:
When we looked at the state of poverty in Santa Barbara County, there was no need to re-invent the wheel - there were so many great reports and statistics to learn from. One key resource was the SB County Snapshot of Poverty report.
Some key findings that surprised us were:
County Total Population 400,584. People in poverty 57,463 which is 14.3% of the total county population!
16,319 children in poverty in the County 47 percent reside in North County 27 percent in South County 27 percent in Mid County
More than 1 in 5 children, 1 in 5 adults, and 1 in 14 seniors in Santa Barbara County live in poverty.
Based on our groups geographic locations we were able to target sites in both North and South County for deeper research
Source Santa Barbara Snapshot of Poverty

4. Impact of Poverty Continued…
Trend: alarming rise in poverty
in recent years
Key issue for our group: children
in poverty
ASHLEY: 1:30
Additional learnings that resonated and surprised us from the Snapshot of Poverty report:
Overall, the number of individuals in poverty has increased by 51.2 percent from 2007 to 2010.
Child poverty has increased by 61 percent since 2007
Infants and toddlers in food-insecure households are 30% more likely to have a history of hospitalization, 90% more likely to be reported in fair or poor health, nearly twice as likely to have iron deficiency anemia, and two-thirds more likely to be at risk for developmental delays.
71% of low-income K-12 students in the County are reached by the National School Lunch Program, but only half take advantage of the breakfast program—which is $5 million in missed revenue in federal reimbursements per school year
One in five children was in poverty in 2010 (21.8 percent). This is the largest percent increase in poverty among the age population groups.
TRACY: 0:40
The Recession of 2007–2010 resulted in a 52 percent increase in residents living below the Federal Poverty Thresholds and a 61 percent increase in child poverty in Santa Barbara County.
Yet, just as the community need for human service programs grew, state and federal budget deficits resulted in deep cuts in human services programs. These cuts have strained the public and non-profit safety net infrastructure, leaving Santa Barbara County’s most vulnerable community members without adequate resources to make ends meet.
Knowing that we could not focus on every aspect of poverty as a group we narrowed our focus to children and hunger as we moved into the “research” phase of our project..

5. Research in the community...
MARITZA: 1:00 min
On the right of this slide you can see where we are at in the group process. Our group moved into the “Research in the community” phase.
After reviewing statistics, we narrowed the focus of our research to three key areas that most interested us. We identified experts in each of these in hopes that they could help us learn about the many different approaches that agencies are using to tackle the issue of poverty.
1st area: Food resources in SB County. We were interested in agencies that focused on distributing food and alleviating hunger immediately. For this area, we identified the Foodbank and Unity Shoppe.
2nd area: We were also interested in learning about global or holistic approaches to chronic houselessness - an issue that has been in the spotlight in our community. Our community expert here was the Rescue Mission.
and for our 3rd area, we were interested in looking into resources that specifically worked with children under 5. Here, we identified WIC, First Five, and later, our coach connected us with the Preschool Food Initiative.

6. Research Area: Food Resources
Key findings:
Foodbank
North and South County Sites
Unity Shoppe
ASHLEY: 1:30
Foodbank North County,
· The Foodbank of Santa Barbara County is working towards moving the community “from hunger into health”
· They currently have a member network of over 300 local partners and programs throughout the county, and also have several of their own programs – 50% of which are in North County.
· Last year, they served over 146,000 unduplicated low-income clients in the entire Santa Barbara County – 35% of which were children, 48% were adults, and 17% seniors % of which was in North County
· A common misconception about the Foodbank is that they dispense food directly from their offices, but they actually source food from a handful of resources and then distribute through their partners and programs. 9.7 Million pounds of food was housed and distributed through them last year – approximately half of which was fresh produce.
· This fact, combined with the overall success of the Foodbank and their concentrated effort focusing on ‘healthy’ food, has created an interesting problem – food storage space. We learned that the North County distribution center is having to store a lot of the food for South County, due to South County’s limited warehouse space. We also learned that, each year, the Foodbank is unable to take in an additional 2 million pounds of food, simply because they do not have the storage space. So, when I asked a representative of the North County Foodbank the Million Dollar question, her answer was simple – a larger warehouse for South County, allowing both counties to have their own efficient centers.
TRACY: 1:00
Foodbank South County (Melissa Fontaine and Misha Garrison)
Confirm the need for more warehouse space
Quality of food and nutrition education matter
People need other things beyond food – job training/public speaking, living wage, rehab, budget management, healthy cooking, affordable housing
North and South County have different challenges and needs
What are some issues for this organization?
Staffing in South County
MARITZA: 1:00
Unity Shoppe
During our site visit, we really learned a lot about their holistic approach and their commitment to serving families by providing stability. Their main focus is to provide comprehensive short-term support to families with the intention that they will be able to permanently move out of poverty. They provide services with an approach centered on keeping the client’s integrity intact, providing food, clothing, and supplies, connecting clients with employment training, and help clients access many other community resources.
Their main issues are finding on-going financial support and addressing the growing population of needy families
What would they do with $1 million dollars? Expand the number of families they serve while maintaining the holistic support model that they are so proud of!

7. Research Area: Holistic Approaches To Address Chronic Houselessness
Key findings:
Rescue Mission
KIAH: 1:20
Another key demographic in our community that suffers from lack of food is our homeless population. According to the C3H and Common Grounds Vulnerability Survey in 2015, 75% of the homeless in our county are men with an average age of 43 and the oldest age being 83.
The SBRM serves these individuals by
1) providing meals, showers, and beds for homeless guests, 2) operating a state-licensed drug and alcohol rehab program, and 3) offering a sober-living facility.
In 2015, they served more than 70,000 dinners and breakfasts and provided over 33,000 safe-stay bed for homeless guests. Their rehabilitation programs can accommodate up to 48 men and 24 women at a time and the sober living facility provides a drug-free living environment to over 30 men.
Share additional findings from your meeting
It was enlightening to realize that only about 6% of the annual budget is spent on purchasing food. Finding a lower cost solution for food, will NOT create a large impact on the operating budget.
Due to the need for consistent food supply, most of the food is purchased from commercial purveyors, either Jordanos or Cisco. Only a small portion comes from the Food Bank or via donations. Granted, providing local and organic foods is not the primary objective of the Rescue Mission, instead, it is to bring physical, emotional, educational and spiritual resources to all who struggle with homelessness and addiction.
What would they do with $1 million dollars?
Over the last 5 years the number of female guests have increases, but the separate accommodations for them are insufficient. Likely, a $1 million investment would be used to renovate the women’s overnight rooms and a complete a much-needed update of the kitchen to manage the food storage and preparation more efficiently.

8. Research Area: Resources for Children Under 5 in Hunger
Key findings:
WIC
First Five
NOHEMY: 0:30
WIC
Nutritional Services for pregnant women, new mothers, infants and children up to age 5
Purpose to provide quality nutrition and breastfeeding education and support to the members of the Santa Barbara County community. Our goal is to promote optimal health in an atmosphere of dignity and respect.
Food vouchers, breastfeeding program, wellness program, and nutritional services
KIAH: 0:15
My wife and I adopted our first child and participated in the WIC program in our county during the foster care process. Based on our experience, a basic investment in transitioning from paper checks to prepaid cards would increase efficiency and reduce food stamp-stigma during the checkout process at grocery stores.
First Five
The purpose of First Five is to help all children prepare for Kindergarten by supporting families to be healthy and strong and by enhancing the availability of high quality child care and preschool
Funding is through Prop 10 Tobacco Tax Revenues--80% is distributed to counties
Strategic plan Integrated into the community and have 5 focus areas Family Support, Early Care and Education, Capacity Building and System Changes, Communication, Health Insurance and Access for Children
Evaluation Report- provides outcomes related to objectives and goals
Spent over 2.8 million severing over 1600 childern and close to 2000 parents

9. Research Area: Resources for Children Under 5 - Unique Approaches
Key findings:
Preschool Food
Initiative (PFI)
TRACY: 1:30
Thanks to our coach Lois Mitchell, we learned about the Preschool Food Initiative, a program that combines several of the topics we had started to learn about - among them food initiatives and children under 5.
Deep dive on PFI:
PFI summary: what it is, scope, goals, limitations
PFI was an Orfalea Foundation program that focused on training Early childhood education centers, such as preschools, on topics such as the lack of thoughtful and healthy nutrition policies and practices, weak programs for physical activity, lack of focus on recycling and minimizing the environmental impact of waste.
The program operated via educational site visits by trained PFI staff and a series of six workshops that Center employees could participate in.
Additionally, a scoring matrix was created for centers to allow them to see where they currently stand and evaluate progress
Had an opportunity to do a site visit - Hope 4 Kids Preschool & Infant Toddler Center
Staff reiterated the value gained from the onsite visits by PFI staff as well as the workshops.
Children spend much of their time outside learning and playing - even gardening
Little girl eating greens - many of the kids at the preschools receive their first exposure to healthy eating
A key impact: Transition the learning to the parents to encourage healthy policies at home
Not solely focused on low income families but results did show success across different socioeconomic backgrounds
The PFI program was brought to completion in 2015 but the learnings and practices have been embedded in the centers and continue to be implemented today
MARITZA: 0:30
What are some issues for this organization?
The experts we met with expressed a desire to see on-going trainings and educational opportunities for staff. They let us know how challenging it is to hold onto trained staff because of the high turnover rate in the early childhood educator community. They absolutely loved their experience with PFI and felt that every center - private, public, home-based, center-based, could find real value in continuing to be engaged with PFI and long-term training.
$1 million dollars could possibly target an expansion of the program to reach children from a broader segment of the community. The value that PFI brings is to create a lasting impact on food nutrition and to fundamentally change the way that families use available food to create healthy lifestyles.

10. Team’s Approach To Addressing “Poverty”
ASHLEY: 0:45
When we came back together after our site visits and interviews in the community, we found that this issue was even larger and ran deeper than we had originally thought.
The experts had helped us start to see that the issue of hunger, particularly hunger in children can be related to so many other critical issues:
Food insecurity, joblessness, education, addiction issues, general health, infrastructure issues within the county, living wage issues, nutrition education, food waste, addiction issues, housing insecurity; the list goes on and on.
The agencies that we visited had many of these key issues in common beyond food issues

11. Research: Food Action Plan
Key findings:
Food Literacy
Food Access Centers
Food Affordability and accessibility
Fair Compensation
Source Santa Barbara Food Action Plan
KIAH: 0:40
Last month, thanks to an amazing group of people and organizations in our community, the 2016 Final Report of the Santa Barbara County Food Action Plan was released after 2 years of research. This plan is “a strategy-based community “blueprint” for an accessible, thriving, sustainable, and healthy food system. It addresses every aspect of the food system in a way that supports healthy people, a healthy economy, and a healthy environment.” With over 200 contributing community members the report provides valuable insight into our community’s food system and commits to take actions to invest in prosperity and health in our food system.
Although the Food Action Plan is far too detailed and extensive to adequately give it credit in this presentation, it is a foundational piece of research and we strongly encourage that is be a resource for any continued research or innovative ideas related to our county’s food system.
NOHEMY:
Many of the learnings/findings/interests that resonated most with us can be summarized with these four goals outlined into the Food Action Plan.
Goal 8: “Integrate food literacy into all school campus cultures…”
Goal 10: “Establish Community Food Access Centers…”
Goal 11: “Increase Affordability and accessibility to healthy…locally grown food for all residents..”
Goal 12: “Support fair compensation for all members of the food workforce…to help sustain their vital role in the regional food system”
It was great validation to the team that many of the Goals in the Food Action Plan matched with the findings of our own research

12. Development of Action…
Million Dollar Ideas
Short vs Medium vs Long Term
Infrastructure vs
Systemic Change
TRACY:
Some of us drawn to long term solutions vs short term fixes - what would we do with $1 Million Dollars? There is no one solution to these complex issues that we or any of our experts could come up with that would make a far-reaching impact. However, within one segment of the issue, we can see some possibilities for single points of deep impact. The ideas for how to utilize a million dollars span different concepts and timeframes but all are valuable in the fight.
Immediate Solution:
Foodbank expanded distribution and storage facilities
Post harvest gleaning
MARITZA: 0:45
Medium Term – An approach that resonated with many of us on the team was to work with an existing food literacy or nutrition education program and use the million dollars to expand services and provide additional support. In particular, we explored the idea of investing long-term into the Preschool Food Initiative program to reach deeper into low- income communities.
The Orfalea Foundation extensively researched the impact of PFI and found that the program was effective with children of all socio-economic statuses. This leaves a ripe opportunity to use the model with a specific segment of the population - namely, families with less resources.
Our team would invest in staff training in sites that served lower-income families – so that these children and families can access food education and create long- lasting healthy food relationships
KIAH: 1:15
Long Term - Research on food waste and prevention methods
Ugly food waste/expiration dates
Keeping food in the area

13. Personal Learnings... Our own take-aways….
NOHEMY (pick an open question) Shoot for 0:30 per person (2:30 total)
Everyone choose at least one of these questions to talk about briefly (IF time allows!!):
ASHLEY: We all learned so much!!!!
1. How does your problem area “fit” with your passions, worldviews, skill set? ASHLEY
2. What are your key learnings from “inside” the sector (from exec directors, program folks, development specialists, end-customers of the various non-profits)?
3. What are your key learnings from “outside” the sector (board members, national learnings, public data sources)?
4. What are the biggest surprises/unexpected insights you’ve experienced during your project? MARITZA
Catalyst for joining the program - excited to ignite a new passion for an issue I hadn’t explored much before - continuing work in the area of social justice/education equality
5. Which “lenses” were most useful to your team? Why?
6. In what ways has this project expanded your network?
7. What specific ways will you use your KHF experience to make a difference in your problem area (or more broadly in our community)? KIAH
8. What’s different about you as a result of this Fellowship? TRACY Beyond exposing us to the needs of the community, the KHF program had a large focus on understanding our internal values and gave us the courage to ask those closest to us for honest feedback on what our biggest passions and strengths are. This learning process has been vital to me in shaping where I want to go in the future.

14. Questions? ASHLEY: Please thank Lois for her help and guidance!
Call for questions