Written By: Jacob Matz, Partner Engagement Manager, Lord Fairfax Region
At the Food Bank, we often say solving hunger is a community-wide effort and that we are better together. In my role, I see countless examples of the passion and drive that our network partners demonstrate every day to ensure that everyone has enough to eat. Sometimes that means thinking differently about solutions. Let me tell you about one especially impactful collaboration.
An ambitious group of women pastors dedicated to identifying and responding to community needs decided it was time to combine the energy of their collective churches. First Baptist Church and Front Royal Presbyterian Church (both Blue Ridge Area Food Bank network partners) are two of the four independent churches guiding this effort in Front Royal. They’ve created a coalition of more than 14 organizations working together to provide a centralized meal program called Dinner Together.
Growing partnerships for the community
Our network of agency and program partners are creative, operationally diverse, and responsive to needs across our service area. Still, when responding to the food insecurity crisis, it can be difficult for organizations to coordinate efforts. The work is fast-paced, is physically and emotionally challenging, and does not leave much time for strategic collaborations.
Sometimes, organizations must share ownership of initiatives to best meet the need. In Front Royal, Dinner Together organizers have shown that we can be stronger, more efficient, and more effective when we work together.
For about 20 years, these organizations offered meals in their own spaces. But now, each church serves food on its assigned day from the same site: First Baptist Church’s Fellowship Hall. The hall has a large kitchen, space for community meals, and parking for guests and volunteers. Also, this program design offers guests a standardized meal service and a consistent schedule (four days a week). While each church continues to prepare and serve meals on its designated day, the churches share in planning, fundraising, volunteer recruitment, food sourcing, and community outreach.
Dinner Together is a wonderful example of what can happen when our partners work alongside one another toward a common goal. Each sharing the vision that everyone has enough to eat. When we bring our individual strengths and assets together in cooperation, we are in a much stronger position to reach this goal.
Dinner Together is producing results that exceed its original goals
What started as a dozen meals per service has grown to 60-100, and up to 1,200 meals each month.
First Baptist’s Fellowship Hall has become a well-known beacon for other services too, including groceries to go. Meanwhile, other Food Bank partners—Reaching Out Now, Inc., Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry, and Front Royal/Warren County CCAP—contribute resources and food when needed. These partners help address guest needs through referrals to any of the 14 organizations in the Dinner Together network.
“Meals become a steppingstone to other services,” says Jill Smedley, Outreach Coordinator at Front Royal Presbyterian Church.
The collaboration offers benefits to all parties, increasing the potential number of people served and freeing up capacity. By focusing on more than weekly meals, these cooperating agencies can also direct efforts to other services like backpack programming and the Food Bank’s Reach program (food boxes for seniors) and to working with families without homes.
“We are all smaller churches with older congregations. There is no way we could impact the community in the way we are, by doing this by ourselves,” noted Pastor Christy McMillin-Goodwin of First Baptist Church.
The impact is more than pounds of food moved or total meals served. It’s also reliability, quality of service, and the opportunity to change lives. Bringing social services together works toward each of these goals.
This collaborative network helps organizations increase both quantity and quality of services
“You can give someone a meal but are you serving them well without building a relationship?” Jill Smedley, outreach coordinator at Front Royal Presbyterian Church posed this question recently. Dinner Together allows her church to “serve more people and serve more people intentionally,” Jill contends.
Collaborative partnerships:
- help lift the number of people served
- enhance the capacity of staff and volunteers to build effective relationships with them
- connect guests to a network of organizations to better meet their needs
Before 2020, meal services in Front Royal were a patchwork—a loosely connected collection of different meals, served on different days in different locations. This moving target of social services made them easy to miss. In that scenario, a guest may travel to the wrong place, on the wrong day, at the wrong time, for a meal. Or they may simply choose not to ask for help rather than navigate an ever-shifting schedule.
Dinner Together, and the women that lead it, brought organizations together to create a stronger, more reliable safety net in Front Royal.
To all those involved in Dinner Together: Thank you for working together to increase your efficiency and impact in the community. You’ve provided a powerful example for all!
Discover the advantages of partnering with the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank by contacting a regional partner engagement manager. Find contact information here.
Jacob Matz
