August 2024

  A Letter to our Valued Hunger Relief Partners

Dear Partner,  

The last four years have been a roller coaster for food banks and food pantries across the country, including Food Bank of Wyoming, and somehow the past year has arguably been the most challenging. Need is high, inflation persists, and federal funds for food are less, all while the cost of our operations has risen. 

As a result, we have a decrease in funding — and the funds we do have don’t go as far as they used to. That has created a gap that will inevitably lead to us distributing less food this year compared to last.  

What does this mean for you? There may be a slight variance in the food you receive from us, whether in quantity or variety. Before making any changes to our service to you, we reviewed our fiscal year 2025 budget line by line and reduced every non-essential item we could. We are also taking steps to standardize the amount of food we distribute at our mobile pantries and assessing the number and frequency of our mobile pantry distributions to keep additional food in stock for our partners. We are committed to providing as much of our food resources to you as possible.  

Although we cannot say for sure whether there will be more changes to our food distribution volume and operations in the future, serving our neighbors, in collaboration with you — our Hunger Relief Partners — is our priority. We are committed to continuing our fundraising efforts to support programs like FRESH Express, source more donated products for you, and maintain the quality of foods we distribute with a focus on fresh, familiar, and nutritious foods.  

We understand that this is an immensely challenging time to work in the area of hunger relief, and we want to be a resource for you and collaborate on solutions together. We know each of you is making tough decisions with regard to your operational budgets. Please know that with every decision we make, we are keeping Wyoming neighbors experiencing food insecurity — and you — as our top priority.  

If you’d like to discuss ideas on how we can navigate these challenging times together, please reach out to us at helpdesk@wyomingfoodbank.org. We are sincerely grateful for the work you do and our partnership with you.  

With Gratitude, 

The Team at Food Bank of Wyoming 

Important Dates

    Aug 15   Deadline for Food Safety Training and Civil Rights Training
    Sept 2    Closed for Labor Day* 

    Sept 10  Hunger Action Day 

*all truck routes reflect any necessary changes to accommodate this event.

E-Statement Updates 

While we intended to begin testing emailed statements in July and fully implement them in August, the issues with our Ceres software we experienced in July caused a delay. We will now look to test the emailed statements in late August with the rollout set for the September statements. We apologize for this change in plans, as we know many of you were looking forward to a reduction in paper and streamlining of our monthly billing process. 

As a reminder, E-Statements will be sent to the email address we have on your partner account, typically the primary contact with your organization. If an alternate email recipient is preferred, please contact the HelpDesk team at helpdesk@wyomingfoodbank.org. 

E-Statements will be sent from customerservice@foodbankrockies.org. Please add this email address to your contacts to ensure successful delivery. 

Thank you for your ongoing support of this new process towards our continued goal of going green. We believe it will have a positive impact on our operations and the environment. 

Food Safety and Civil Rights Training

Our online training site opened on July 1 and Food Bank of Wyoming's HelpDesk sent out emails with instructions on how to log in and enroll in the courses in July. These courses are available online at no charge through NEOGOV.

Each course takes about 30 minutes to complete at your own pace, and you'll receive a certificate when completed. You can sign back in at any time to review the material. You can use your login credentials from previous years, or you can reach out to helpdesk@wyomingfoodbank.org to create a new account or to help reset your password.

Completion is required for each active Food Bank of Wyoming partner annually, for at least one team member. A score of 80% is needed to pass the online test.

August 15 is the deadline to complete both trainings. For Hunger Relief Partners that have completed these courses any time after April 1, 2024, you are compliant for this year; thank you. 

Welcoming Rebecca Travers as Programs Manager

Rebecca Travers has been promoted to Programs Manager for Food Bank of Wyoming. Rebecca joined the team in May 2023 as the Projects Program Manager and has been supporting various projects and initiatives around TEFAP, the Reach and Resiliency Grant, mobile pantries, building relationships with Hunger Relief Partners, and projects on the Wind River Indian Reservation. 

Summer Food Transportation Tip

It’s all about keeping cool! Even for dry and shelf-stable items, in your pantry and on the road, proper temperatures must be maintained to ensure the highest quality and food safety.

• Freezer temperatures must be at 0°F or below
• Refrigerators must be kept between 32-40°F
• Dry temperatures must be at 50-70°F

In addition to keeping temperature logs for refrigerators, freezers, and dry storage areas, the FDA now requires temperature logs for all transported food. When Food Bank of Wyoming visits your agency for a partner review, you will be asked to provide copies of these logs. If your team transports food from our warehouse or a drop-off area to a distribution point, there are some useful tools to help maintain required temperatures during transportation: insulated blankets, coolers, dry ice, and refrigerated trucks.

Food safety is an essential aspect of our network. If you are not currently filling out the required logs, please visit our website for copies. It takes a community to feed a community. Thank you for doing your part!

Partner Highlight: Casper Pride

Food Bank of Wyoming is excited to announce Casper Pride as their newest Hunger Relief Partner to join them on the front lines of hunger-relief efforts in Casper. Casper Pride is a local nonprofit committed to supporting the LGBTQ+ community through various resources, which now includes a food pantry for neighbors experiencing food insecurity. Officially opening in June of this year, Casper Pride’s new food pantry allows the nonprofit organization to provide essential food resources to LGBTQ+ individuals and families who face unique challenges and barriers.

“This partnership with Food Bank of Wyoming is incredibly meaningful to us at Casper Pride. It's great to be able to work with like-minded organizations to create a supportive network that ensures everyone has access to nutritious food and a sense of belonging,” says Casper Pride’s Executive Director, Mallory Pollock.

Together, Food Bank of Wyoming and Casper Pride uphold Wyoming’s ‘Equality State’ motto, ensuring every community member has equitable access to essential food resources. The partnership signifies a commitment to addressing fundamental food needs in Casper while fostering a spirit of mutual support.  

Casper Pride’s mission includes providing vital resources for the well-being of the LGBTQ+ community, access to nutritious food being basic building block of wellness.

“We are striving to alleviate stigma by removing access barriers and housing a pantry ourselves. We are aiming to see an increase in overall health and well-being, as food is a fundamental resource for wellness. Our intention is that the pantry will not only provide food as an essential resource but also foster a sense of empowerment among our members,” says Pollock.

Learning Webinar Series

Food Bank of Wyoming, the Wyoming Hunger Initiative, and the Cent$ible Nutrition Program have partnered to provide a webinar series to empower hunger-relief organizations in funding their programs and organizations. This series was designed to help your organization think strategically about how to serve your communities, develop your brand and image, navigate funding opportunities, and write grants that sustain your organization into the future.  

You can watch the recordings and see the handouts here: https://bit.ly/wy-grant-webinar

This institution is an equal opportunity provider.

Food Bank of Wyoming aspires to meet individuals where they are with the foods they need based on their unique circumstances and culture. We show up for any person experiencing hunger knowing that food insecurity can impact any of us at various points in our lives. Today, we may be packing produce for a person facing an unforeseen health crisis and tomorrow we may be providing a weekend food bag to a child whose caregiver may be struggling to find a well-paying job. The circumstances may be different, but we never waver from our mission of igniting the power of community to nourish people facing hunger.

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