Interview with Dave Krepcho – President & CEO Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida
Conducted by: West Orlando News Online
Date: July 3, 2013
WONO: By way of background, tell me about Second Harvest Food Bank, how it has evolved? You have moved recently to new facilities, what does that mean for Second Harvest Food Bank?
Dave Krepcho: Second Harvest Food bank is 30 years old this year as an organization and it started very small. It was an idea of about three or four business people in the community. They heard about this concept called the “food bank” out west and they just started chatting about it and wondered if there was some extra food around in the Orlando area, given the needs of people. So, in 1982, it was started and little did they know where it was going to be today.
Over the past 30 years the organization has just grown rapidly, year-in and year-out. In the first year, about 600,000 pounds of food was distributed. That was amazing, but fast forward to last year, where we distributed 38-million pounds of food. So, a lot has happened in between now and then. It’s a bitter-sweet kind of history. It’s bitter since there is so much need and the need continues to grow in Central Florida. The kind of sweet side is, we have been able to grow and bring more community resources to hunger as an issue and to feed a lot more people.
We undertake a hunger study every four years, which is quite comprehensive. We did one in 2006, just before the economy tanked; the recession hadn’t hit. One of the numbers that we track in this study is how many different people our partners’ feeding programs reach in the six-county area during the course of one year. And that number was 198,000 people in different areas and many of them were multiple times during the year because, it’s an after-school kids program or senior congregate living facility or homeless shelter. When we did that same hunger study in 2010, the recession had hit and the economy was still in the doldrums. And the 198,000 number went up to 732,000 different people, almost 25 percent of the total population.
WONO: I did see those numbers and wondered if there is more recent data. How do you explain that major jump? Granted there was the recession, but at the same time we have seen the growth in wealth of the top 1 percent. How do you reconcile those two things?
Dave Krepcho: We are in the midst of doing that same hunger study right now. That data won’t be available for another eight months because it is such an extensive study. I can tell you just from my gut level that, when I look at the amount of food we are distributing and the amount of folks that need food, we don’t see a decline happening at all. It continues to increase. That number really increased a lot during the economic downturn because you had blue- and white-collar workers who were out of work and many, for the first time in their careers and they never saw it coming.
The second part of your question about the 1-percent. We see that 1-percent becoming wealthier and wealthier. I really believe that. I think a lot of us have heard it, but the middle class is truly shrinking. I saw a video recently, on the 1-percent and wealth inequality. You have a shrinking middle class because the top 1-percent controls over 50 percent of the wealth. That wealth is no longer held in the hands of the middle class. So, you have a class of people at the poverty level, and you have another just above it.
How do you reconcile that? I don’t know how you reconcile that because, in terms of the wealth that exists in our community from a Second Harvest point-of-view, we’ve seen private individuals, corporations, and private foundations step up wonderfully to support our cause. I can speak for Central Florida; I can’t speak for the country. A prime example of that is the facility that we are sitting in right now. It would never be possible without that kind of wealth that exists for charity.
WONO: That was one of my questions. Have corporations like Disney, Universal and other major entities been good corporate citizens?
Dave Krepcho: For sure. Publix, Target, Walmart, Winn-Dixie, Universal, Sea World, Disney, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Fifth Third – they have stepped up. The local foundations like Dr. Phillips Charity – all have provided just wonderful support to make this happen.
WONO: In 2011, Orlando had a high percentage of children going hungry. I think the statistic was one-in-six. How does that compare with other cities in the United States? How do you explain that?
Dave Krepcho: One-in-four. The Central Florida area compares pretty similarly to markets across the country. So, one-in-four kids, that is pretty sad. One-in-four kids is a kind of common statistic around the country. Now, there are pockets where that number is even greater. If you start looking at it county-by-county, Osceola County is one-in-three, a third of the children. I’m sure that if you went to parts of West Virginia or the city of Detroit, the inner city, that number is going to be one-in-three – extremely high.
What is shocking about Central Florida, when you consider childhood hunger, Orlando is the number one tourist destination on the planet. More than fifty-four million people come through here every year and it is the land of dreams and sunshine, resorts and pools, and golf courses and it’s like, “how can that exist here?”
A big driver of that is, a lot of the jobs that exist are low-paying jobs. That’s where the term “underemployment” comes from. People are working full-time and trying to make ends meet and having a hard time doing that. I see more and more employers moving away from 40-hour work weeks to 32-hour weeks because at that level, they don’t have to pay benefits, by law. So, people are not only poorly compensated, but in addition, they aren’t getting benefits. God forbid when something goes wrong with them or their family healthcare wise, you have severe hardship happening then.
WONO: Of course, we have seen the fight in Orange County over sick pay and recent legislation passed and signed into law that will bar local governments from requiring employers to provide sick pay to already lowly paid workers. But I want to move on a little bit. You joined the Food Bank in 2004 and before that you were the executive director of the Miami Food Bank, before you were vice president of business development in Chicago. I think you have a background in advertising. My question is, what led you into feeding the hungry, which some consider a thankless job? Also, in terms of rating yourself, have you fulfilled the goals that you have set over the past 21 years?
Dave Krepcho: Nobody has ever asked me that question. What got me here? It’s more who. The short story is that my wife and I were bringing up our family in Miami and I was in the ad agency business. At the church we attended, I met some folks who befriended me and I found out that they were founders at the Food Bank in Miami, as volunteers. They were local people. One was the CEO of a large food service in Miami, another was an airline pilot and one was a CPA.
My really good friend Joe said, “Hey, why don’t you come and join our board in Miami as a volunteer board member,” and I said, “No. I don’t know anything about that, I really don’t.” He asked me three times and the fourth time he said, “Dave, just get into my car and come down to a board meeting and just look.”
I sat in a board meeting and when I looked around the table there was a local judge and all of these distinguished people and I was convinced that I didn’t belong. Finally, they convinced me to get on the board and so I did and began to realize that, with my marketing and advertising background I could help in terms of creating higher visibility, not only for the organization, but as well for hunger as an issue, and tying those two things together, I could help market the organization. It was a wonderful organization and wonderful concept, but people just didn’t know about it. So, I got involved and helped to create a fund-raising program that raised a lot of money over the years.
Then, in 1992 Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida and for about two weeks after, it was absolute insanity. The founding director of the Miami Food Bank resigned. So, we met in at a little kitchen table on a Saturday afternoon – a couple of us, board members, and they said, “Man, somebody has got to go in temporarily and hold this together until we figure out new leadership.” They all looked at me and I kind of looked behind me. I was in a position where I could go in for maybe three weeks or a month-and-a-half. So I went in temporarily, 20 years ago.
I went in amidst all the disaster relief, but I just knew I belonged. It sounds schmaltzy and corny. It just felt right from the beginning. I believe, I don’t know who had this quote — there is this quote by some esteemed person and I am probably paraphrasing it – when you can find the intersection of one of societies’ greatest needs, and one of your God-given abilities and talents — and everybody has got them– but when you can find that intersection, amazing things can happen when you find a match. That happened in my life. And then you start surrounding yourself with like-minded people and if you can get everybody pulling in the same direction, amazing things happen. I’ve seen it over my 20 years, it has not let up, and has just gotten more and more incredulous.
So, I spent about nine years as a director in Miami and then I went to the National Board of Directors as a volunteer at Feeding America in Chicago. My wife and I became empty nesters and then I pursued the position in Chicago as Vice President of Business Development. We lived up there for about four years and I worked at the national level. Working with all the national food companies at their corporate level – Procter & Gamble, Kraft and many more – getting those donations to food banks across the country. They are part of Feeding America network. It was an incredible experience — seeing the workings of the amazing food industry in America, at the national level.
But as wonderful as that experience was, something was missing. I discovered that my real interest and passion was at the local level. That is what feeds me. I wanted to be back and be part of a community. When I worked nationally, I had to take a train to downtown every day and that takes time, and then I was on an airplane traveling around the country. By the time the weekend hits, I was tapped-out and apart from spending time with my wife, there was hardly any time to connect with the kids and community in which I lived.
It is an interesting story as to how I ended up in Orlando, as my wife and I were not thinking about returning to Florida. My dear friend Margaret Linnane, who is my predecessor at Second Harvest for 16 years – a phenomenal lady who did incredible work here laying the foundation and making this a reputable organization and rock-solid financially- she abruptly resigned when her associate director, Frank Tekon, a great guy, suddenly died. As Margaret put it, Frank’s passing took the ‘wind out of her sails’ and she felt it was time to move on.
So, this position became available nine years ago, July 5th. I literally applied at the eleventh hour for this job. My wife and I agreed not to force anything. I came down and I spoke to the search committee, some board members, and we had a good conversation. What I told them was that, they had a phenomenal organization, but I had one hesitation in pursuing the job and that was, all I could do was screw it up since Margaret had done such an incredible job. Who wants to follow that?
I told the board that the organization could continue to do what they were doing and that would be fantastic. But, I also told them I would be very interested in elevating the organization to another level and casting another vision for the future, because there is still a lot of opportunity to be tapped, if they were interested in going in a new direction.
Nine years ago the board decided to elevate the organization and forge a new direction.
WONO: Have you met your goals over the last two decades?
Dave Krepcho: Yes, over the last two decades, in terms of food-bank goals I kind of break them down to yearly goals, as an organization. Year-in and year-out we achieve those goals and in many cases surpass them. So, it is extremely fulfilling. Whether it is the amount of food we are distributing, or the volunteers we attract, or balancing our budget every year, as a goal. With regard to hunger, I am here for a certain season, to fight hunger. I don’t believe in my lifetime we are going to end hunger and that might sound pessimistic; I don’t know, but that is a reality. It’s too big a problem in the short-term because, the political will in this country is not there. If the political will in the country and of elected officials statewide were in place, we could end hunger really quickly.
I am not throwing government under the bus when I say that, I’m not. Government has a place at this table. The faith-based community has a place at this table, the general public and corporate world have a place over there, and non-profits have a place, as well. The only way we are going to solve it is for everybody to really come to the table and bring their individual resources. That happens to a degree now, and when it happens it’s successful, but it’s going to take much more than that.
Hunger is a symptom of a much bigger issue; I look at hunger as a much more critical symptom, and a primary driver of hunger is poverty and low-income. Then you get into all those issues of why does poverty exists and you have to deal with matters such as affordable housing, a living wage, healthcare, education, graduation rates and all that stuff.
WONO: This leads to my next question concerning prioritization and how the governments of the city of Orlando and Orange County make decisions and spend taxpayer dollars. Are you satisfied that the issue of hunger is treated with the priority it deserves?
Dave Krepcho: No. That is the shortest answer I can give. I don’t see it in their budgets.
WONO: Why not?
Dave Krepcho: Governments have other priorities. There is always a lack of resources in government and you’ve got to understand that. When your tax base gets hit, like it has been, there is less revenue so you have to make cuts whether at the city, state, county, or federal level. You should have balanced budgets. I am a true believer in that. However, and I heard one pastor say this and it is so true, “Budgets are moral documents.”
If I show you my checking account and you observe where I spent my money, it shows you where my personal priorities are, right? The same applies with our government. You have to give priorities to things like public safety and education. But I don’t see significant resources being put toward alleviating hunger. We do get government money and we are grateful for what we get. We leverage whatever we can get and do amazing things with leveraging it. But I think my answer could go in one-hundred directions. When I think of the federal budget in Congress right now, I look at the Farm Bill that is supposed to be approved every five years and the Farm Bill also funds Food Stamps, as an example. The House passed the Bill to cut $20 billion out of the program; a $20 billion cut at a time when the need is at an all-time-high. Yet when you look at what we are spending on Defense, it’s huge. Yes, we have got to protect our country, but I just read an article on the development of a new fighter jet which will costs $240 billion to produce just one. That doesn’t include the cost to maintain the jet and I presume that hundreds will be manufactured.
WONO: Let’s jump back to the local level, why do you think the issue of hunger is not given the kind of priority you would like to see?
Dave Krepcho: I think part of it is, the influential pressure on legislators or elected officials isn’t there on issues such as hunger, as it is on other issues. On matters such as the building of a soccer stadium and how much the city or county should contribute, or whether another public venue like the Amway Center is built – those folks have powerful lobbyists and commercial interests. The elected officials know the lobbyists and commercial interests have a lot of influence on a lot of folks and their votes really count. They have power.
On the other hand, when you talk about hunger, you have some local organizations, including ours that talk about it and try to educate. But the people that we represent, they don’t have much of a voice. They are not organized. They don’t have the powerful impact that these other players do. I think that is at the core of it. If you were to talk to either of the local mayors, or our governor, there is no doubt in my mind that they will say, “Boy, we agree, we just got to feed more people.” And I would believe they would be sincere. However, when it comes down to the collective decision to allocate the funds, it’s not happening. Some of that is being done, but not enough.
WONO: Your COO, Jim Stencel, what do you rely on him for and the same for Karen Broussard? I understand Ms. Broussard is a practicing therapist. How do they fit into your organization?
Dave Krepcho: Jim Stencel is our Chief Operating Officer responsible for the day-to-day operation, which includes our fleet of 18 trucks and drivers, the entire distribution staff, and the movement of all that food and inventory control, and all the processes that are necessary to support that. It is a huge job.
Karen Broussard was a practicing therapist. She spent 16 years with Jewish Family Services here, one of our partner feeding programs, and a great organization. Her role as Vice President, Agency Relations & Programs, is a very large role. She, along with her staff, is responsible for agency relations. What that is, we have 520 different agencies or partner feeding programs that we provide food to. It is all about recruiting those partners and giving them orientation, ongoing monitoring and having conversations with them. We have a number of programs that exist ranging from childhood hunger programs, to SNAP outreach. Karen oversees all of that and keeps that team going in the right direction and provides the strategic view in that area.
WONO: About 12,000 seniors within the city limit of Orlando can’t adequately feed themselves. I think Florida ranks in the top ten in senior hunger. What steps is Second Harvest taking to help alleviate this problem?
Dave Krepcho: Senior hunger – the timing of your questing is interesting. When you arrived I was just wrapping up a telephone call with AARP, in which I was discussing senior hunger. We have been feeding seniors for years and continue to, and we reach seniors through our partner feeding organizations. They are getting food from us, and some agencies are giving food to families when there is often a senior citizen in the family that is being helped. About one in five of the people that we are helping through the course of the year are senior citizens, about 20 percent. That is a lot of senior citizens, but that is in the six-county area. The other thing we are piloting – we discussed this at the Senior Hunger Summit, Nita Colon and Karen talked about this, with AARP and the Winter Park Foundation providing funding – a program where we are training AARP volunteers to go out and find their peers, those seniors that need help in their apartments, their homes, to see if they are getting Food Stamps, and if not, why? I think it’s a wonderful approach. It will be interesting to see if it works. The jury is still out, it’s too early to tell. Seniors tend to have a problem admitting they need help, and most of our outreach team is a very young group. So, with AARP volunteers – peers talking to peers makes a lot of sense. They can relate in a much more impactful way.
At Second Harvest, we are just starting our strategic planning for the next three to five years and it’s probably going to take five to six months for us to complete this. It is going to be a pretty robust plan. One of the key things within that plan is Senior Hunger because, we know the numbers that are hungry and the whole silver tsunami and how important adequate nutrition is to healthcare. Food is medicine, medicine is food. So, we are going to take a deep dive into the senior-hunger ratio, as we haven’t done before, and do it collectively with Seniors First and AARP, and Randy Hunt and the Mayor’s Council.
It would be great to have a vision or goal three years out to have X-percent of low-income seniors getting adequate access to proper nutrition. Then the group has to figure out how are we going to do that. This is where you have to start working out all of the different strategies and tactics. The financial resources are not going to be there from day one. But I think we just have to map out the vision, build this plan, make people aware of the problem, educate them on how big the gap is, and then determine how to close the gap, with everyone present at the table.
I will compare that exactly to how we got this building constructed during a recession when everybody was saying, “you’re crazy,” and most non-profits were trying to make payroll for day-to-day operations.
Here we were building a $15 million facility during a recession and still having to feed more people. But I think one of the keys was we were able to paint a vision and we had to show why we are doing it. We had to show what gap there is and what problem there is, and how this design answers that problem. We had to make clear what the return on investment to the community would look like, and this resonated with our major donors. There was a business case to be made at the same time that we were concentrating on senior hunger or childhood hunger.
WONO: Looking out over the next two to three years in terms of your internal forecast for the hunger problem, what are your numbers saying in relation to Orlando and Orange County?
Dave Krepcho: We don’t see any indicators that the need is going to go down in the next two to three years. I’d like to think of myself as an optimist. I’m looking for the bright spot because the economy has improved somewhat, but it will take years for that to really impact the unemployment rate and incomes of people. So many people lost their nest egg during this recession and they are at an age where there is not enough years to earn that back. A lot of people in their early 60’s and early 70’s that lost so much during the recession, including investments they might have had. It’s not like they can go out into the workforce and earn that back. So I don’t see the need diminishing; I hope I’m proven wrong.
The other thing we are pursuing already and will continue to pursue in this strategic plan is, to not only look at the amount of food that we provide, but we are putting a major stake in the ground around nutrition. With the obesity crisis, a lot of low-income people are the ones that are obese. Some people once in a while will come up to me and say, “Well, how come these poor people are so fat?” And you want to strangle them. But you say okay, it’s a teachable moment. You start explaining about cheap calories, high carbs and all that. We believe that if we are more intentional about getting more nutritious food out to people and with the hundreds of thousands that we reach, it can have an impact on their healthcare and to a degree on the healthcare of the community. So, not only an economic benefit, but a lifestyle benefit.
WONO: I have a quick follow-up question on nutrition. It wasn’t always the case that food banks focused on nutritional aspects of the food distributed? When did that change come about?
Dave Krepcho: A lot of food banks aren’t even looking at that. For us, we started looking at it about two to three years ago. It has been some of the most interesting discussions we’ve had at the board level and with our senior staff. As a result, we now have a nutritional policy for the organization which never existed before.
It is a very challenging issue to tackle for a bunch of reasons. First, you have to go and find that kind of food, but fortunately we have been able to and there are lots more of it.
WONO: Do you turn away food that wasn’t necessarily nutritious?
Dave Krepcho: We had a long discussion internally on precisely that issue. As an organization, we have decided to focus our solicitation on healthier foods and not pursue unhealthy stuff. We are going to give priority in our distribution center to healthier foods that are offered to us versus candy and sugared sodas, depending on how much space we have, and that could change week by week. Also philosophically, we’re not here to legislate to people what to eat. We can help educate and influence, but, who are we to tell these folks what to eat or not?
Everything must be done in moderation. You just can’t say no to these snack foods and all the other stuff. I’ll tell you a story tied directly to that.
It is a story about a high salted bag of corn chips and sugared soda. I was interviewing some teens in an after-school program in the inner city when I was in Miami, talking to them about why they are in this program. I said, “what if these meals weren’t being provided, what would you do?” And they said, “What are you talking about, we’re not getting meals, we’re getting chips and soda.” Food was the magnet to get them into the peer counseling program, teens-to-teens. Teens were coming off the street and into the program and out of trouble. It doesn’t work 100 percent of the time but I never looked at bag of chips and soda the same again. Food is a very powerful magnet and attraction.
Here is another story. Food is opportunity, it is also health and medicine. Food also provides a basic biological need and squashes the hunger sensation in your stomach, but there is a real emotional and sociological piece. Take a single mother with two kids, working just above minimum wage, trying to pay rent, trying to feed and clothe her kids, trying to put gas in the car to get to a job – basic needs. But, her daughter’s birthday is coming up and she can’t afford to buy a birthday cake and have a party with friends. I mean, what is the impact on that mother and what is the desire on the part of that child for a birthday cake – a heavily frosted birthday cake? So, we have birthday cakes donated from the grocery store and we distribute them.
WONO: We talked earlier about poverty and hunger and how they reinforce each other. Will the poor always be with us?
Dave Krepcho: Unfortunately, I believe there will be some percentage of the population, no matter what program might be available to the community, for some reason they will fall between the cracks and not be able to take advantage of those resources. Homelessness is one segment of the population tied up in that, but that is another hour-long interview. So, I think there is always going to be a segment of the population, which for a variety of reasons will not be able to take advantage of the resources being provided. But, I truly believe we can feed a lot more people and a lot more of the population.
WONO: What about those protective Schnauzers? What are their names and do you and Mrs. Krepcho take them on trips to Sedona?
Dave Krepcho: They don’t travel to Sedona, but we go out to Jacksonville to visit our daughter, her husband and our grandson and they go with us. But Bella, she is the little white one; Tedi, is actually a she, the grey salt and pepper one. My wife and I became empty nesters; we just love animals. We just love dogs.
WONO: Is there anything you would like to add?
Dave Krepcho: I mentioned this before, but I just want to put an exclamation point on it. The Central Florida community has responded really well to Second Harvest and the message of hunger in our community and our asking them to join in the fight against hunger. We know there’s a lot more people out there that can join the fight. But I just want to say a huge thank you to people who have volunteered with us, gave their time and talent to us. People have donated food through food drives – scouts, schools, letter carriers, or a family during the holidays. Every box of cereal and can of food makes a difference. For those people who have donated say five dollars or five-thousand, it’s lots of people coming to the table to make this happen. We are so grateful for the community’s support and we can’t thank people enough.
It continues to amaze me how much of a giving population this is; I’m blown away by people helping.
As you go out our main doors, last Saturday a Girls Scout troop came and they created an herb garden for our community kitchen – a beautiful garden with pots and everything else. So, we have our own community kitchen. It’s things like that which gives one hope in human kind. That is what inspires all of us – you see people respond and everybody making a difference.
I had some kids from Ivey Lane Elementary School, nearby. They did their first garden at the school, they grew snap peas and they were so proud. Well, they came into the Food Bank and presented us with a food donation. About 12 little kids with a cardboard box wrapped up and they drew pictures on it of Second Harvest, with an inscription which said, “Our first harvest to Second Harvest.” And I looked in the box and at the bottom of the box were these green beans. There might have been about a pound. That stuff is touching – amazing stuff happens and that is what gives you hope.
WONO: Thank you, Mr. Krepcho.
Dave Krepcho: Thank you very much.
Contact information:
Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida
Main Facility
411 Mercy Drive, Orlando, FL 32805 –
Phone: 407-295-1066 – Fax: 295-5299
Website: www.foodbankcentralflorida.org
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