Wonderful Staff

This week I got lots of quality time with our Program Team at their Tuesday retreat. In the morning they completed a Multiple Intelligence Assessment and then moved forward to create their team mission statement. In the afternoon we headed to the O'Brien Community Center in Winooski to cook the community meal for the COTS Day Station. I'm reminded on a daily basis what a talented, smart, and generous team we have at the Campaign.

On that note, today Ann and Maisie came in to my office dressed in the fruit costumes for tomorrow's Summer Food Kick off in Burlington.

Maisie as a Strawberry

Ann as a Fair Trade Banana

Rebecca O'Reilly and I make six loaves of Cooking for Life Carrot Bread

The Program Team discussing their mission statement

2009 Annual Meeting

It was a pleasure to see all of our board members at our annual meeting on June 10th. We welcomed many new faces to the table and celebrated the contributions of departing board members. This meeting was also the launch of our strategic planning process. Our wonderful consultant, Jim Lefevre took us through a "visioning" exercise for the whole board and staff. We wrote "achievements" on one side of an index card and "impact" on the other. Then we all shared our hopes and dreams for the impact and achievements of the Campaign as if we were waking up on the morning of January 1, 2015. I spread all the cards out on my desk after the meeting to take it all in. The common threads among the cards are quite remarkable, my favorite being Vermont becomes a leader and model for ending hunger.

Many thanks to the wonderful people at Allscripts who let us use their conference space! The whole board won't convene again until October, but we have board orientation to look forward to this summer!

Northeast Regional Anti-Hunger Network

I snapped these photos on my iPhone last week while meeting with the Northeast Regional Anti-Hunger Network. This is a group of leaders in the anti-hunger movement from various organizations across New England and New York. We come together on a bi-monthly basis to meet with our partners at the USDA, FNS, and FRAC to make policy and program recommendations. We also share strategies and best practices for local, state, and federal advocacy and outreach. At this meeting we discussed our important role in advocating for changes to Child Nutrition Reauthorization. Thank you to Project Bread for hosting us!