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The North Texas Food Bank officially unveiled its new Northern Distribution center, named the Perot Family Campus, at a special community event in Plano. This state-of-the-art facility is named in honor of the Perot family, recognizing their lead gift to the Food Bank’s Stop Hunger Build Hope capital campaign, showcasing the family’s multi-generational commitment to hunger relief. The 230,000-square-foot facility houses food distribution, volunteer operations, office space and a community learning garden, named Jan’s Garden, in memory of the Food Bank’s late CEO, Jan Pruitt. The new campus, along with key investments in the North Texas Food Bank’s Feeding Network that includes more than 200 food pantries, provides the capacity needed to close the hunger gap by providing access to 92 million nutritious meals annually by 2025. The Perot Family Campus was made possible thanks to the generous support of many individuals, corporations, foundations and businesses that contributed to the Food Bank’s Stop Hunger Build Hope capital campaign as well as efforts from in-kind supporters who helped create a building that is both welcoming and functional. These details were showcased at the celebratory Grand Opening event on September 16, where almost 2,000 attendees joined to celebrate the new facility and the opportunities it holds. The event featured tours, family-friendly activities, and special dedications for named spaces within the building. To get involved with the North Texas Food Bank, visit ntfb.org
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 The North Texas Food Bank's Capital Campaign, Stop Hunger Build Hope, was nominated for Most Successful Fundraising Campaign as part of the inaugural D CEO 2018 Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship awards.
In collaboration with the Communities Foundation of Texas, these awards aim to honor nonprofits and corporations that give back to North Texas. With more than 340 nominees, it is an honor to be among the 64 finalists chosen by D CEO editorial staff. In fact, many of our capital campaign supporters, longstanding partners and members of our Feeding Network are among this group including: Alliance Data, Toyota Motor North America, Kroger, Hillwood Communities, Norma's Cafe, Texas Capital Bank, Capital One, Pioneer Natural Resources, Sharing Life and Terry Flowers from St. Philip’s School and Community Center Congratulations to all of the finalists and nominees, thank you for making North Texas a better place to live and work! Click here for the full list of finalists The North Texas Food Bank is just months away from opening a new volunteer and distribution center, the Perot Family Campus, in Plano. To raise awareness about the move and build excitement around the Food Bank's new home, the City of Plano and Plano City Council hosted a special event- Hello Collin County- sponsored by Granite Properties.
This event gave attendees the opportunity to learn about the Food Bank's feeding network- comprised of more than 200 Partner Agencies- with several Collin County agencies available onsite to answer questions and detail volunteer opportunities. In addition to connecting with Food Bank Partner Agencies, attendees were able to hear the powerful story of Sean Brigida, a current student at Collin College and a client of the Food Bank's Mobile Pantry Program. After learning that Sean was struggling with chronic hunger, his professor, Dr. Peggy Brown, brought him food. This act of kindness, coupled with Sean's passion to pay it forward led the two to bring the Food Bank's Mobile Pantry Program to campus, launching earlier this year. The Food Bank team is grateful to Sean for his candor and willingness to share his story. It is clear that the efforts of the Food Bank and the many agencies on the front lines of hunger make an impact for the more than 800,00 people that struggle with food insecurity across North Texas. To learn more about the Food Bank's move to Plano, visit ntfb.org. To see photos from today's event, visit our Flickr page.  Supporters gathered to pay tribute to one of North Texas' most passionate hunger fighters: the late Jan Pruitt, at the site where she started her career. The former Lancaster Outreach Center will be known as the Jan Pruitt Community Pantry in homage to the woman who believed that we should all be the change we wish to see in the world.
The Jan Pruitt Community Pantry was made possible thanks to a unique collaboration between the Food Bank, Catholic Charities Dallas and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of North Texas. The organization's leadership set ambitious goals for the Jan Pruitt Community Pantry, including providing neighbors in need with more than one million pounds of nutritious food per year by the third year of operation, serving more than 1,000 families. Establishing this pantry is part of the Food Bank’s broader strategic goal of providing access to 92 million meals by 2025 by helping the more than 800,000 people in North Texas who don’t know where their next nutritious meal is coming from. The Food Bank and our partners would like to thank the many donors to our Capital Campaign, Stop Hunger Build Hope, who helped make this honor possible including the dedicated board of the Food Bank. Thanks to their belief in our mission, our hungry neighbors in Lancaster and the surrounding areas will be able to access the healthy foods that they need to thrive. Click here to see more photos from this historic day.  As the Food Bank prepares for our move to the Perot Family Campus in Plano, there is a special opportunity for our supporters to make their mark. Consider purchasing an engraved paver for display in “Jan’s Garden” as a special way to honor a friend or loved one while fighting hunger at the same time. This is a limited opportunity and a meaningful way to be a part of the Food Bank's new Perot Family Campus. Each paver is customizable with a name, message, tribute or quote. All proceeds benefit the general operating fund of the North Texas Food Bank. Limited quantities available, purchase yours today at brixbase.com/projects/northtexasfoodbank. 
Oh what a night! Many supporters of the Stop Hunger Build Hope Capital Campaign gathered at the beautiful Perot Family offices in Dallas to celebrate the closing of this historic campaign. Thanks to the efforts of campaign Co-Chairs John and Pam Beckert, a dedicated capital campaign committee and more than 500 donors, more than $55 million was raised for hunger relief in North Texas. The funds raised from Stop Hunger Build Hope will be used to create a volunteer and distribution center- the Perot Family Campus- in Plano, TX and will also be invested into the Food Bank’s feeding network. Though our new facility will be in Plano, the Food Bank also has our feet firmly planted in Dallas thanks to the Moody Foundation. Their $5 million gift to Stop Hunger Build Hope will allow for the renovation of NTFB's Dallas Farmers Market building, to be named in the Moody Foundation’s honor! With a goal of raising $55 million, Stop Hunger Build Hope is the largest capital campaign for a social service organization in North Texas History. Thank you to all of our supporters for agreeing that hunger is unacceptable, and for laying the foundation for the Food Bank of the future. The vision of the Food Bank is to create a hunger-free, healthy North Texas. We will achieve this by ensuring that the agencies that are our partners have the resources they need to put healthy food on the table for our neighbors in need. To see a full list of Stop Hunger Build Hope donors please click here. It is a great day in Wylie, TX, with the Grand Opening of Amazing Grace Food Pantry. Amazing Grace is a member of the North Texas Food Bank’s Feeding Network and are recipients of funding from the North Texas Food Bank’s Capital Campaign- Stop Hunger Build Hope. Thanks to Stop Hunger Build Hope donors Prairie Creek Partners Charitable Foundation, Alan and Randy Engstrom and Debbie and Ric Scripps, Amazing Grace now has a facility that is able to accommodate more clients who will be able to receive more nutritious food - especially fresh produce!
A special thank you to the Honorable Congressman Pete Sessions and Wylie Mayor Eric Hogue for addressing the excited audience at this special event! Amazing Grace has served the community of Wylie and neighboring areas for more than 12 years. In their first year they served a few dozen people. Fast forward to 2017 and they served 813 families with 592,000 pounds of food. This shows that the need in Wylie and in Collin County is great. In fact, according to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap, Collin County has a food insecurity rate of 16 percent. This means that more than 135,000 people don’t know where their next nutritious meal will come from. The Food Bank serves 13 counties across North Texas and is working to fill the current meal gap and provide 92 million meals by 2025. We will achieve this goal thanks to partners like Amazing Grace Food Pantry and support from people like you. Thank you for believing in our vision of creating hunger free, healthy North Texas. Our new Perot Family Campus is well on its way to be complete by this fall! This new facility, located in Plano, will help us further our goal of providing 92 million meals annually to those in need in North Texas by 2025. It will allow us to reach more children, seniors, and families who are facing food insecurity. Thank you for sharing this journey with us. We can’t wait for our supporters to see our new campus!   Dallas, Jan. 23, 2018 – Making North Texas history with the largest capital campaign for a social service agency, the North Texas Food Bank’s (NTFB) “Stop Hunger Build Hope” capital campaign has reached the $55 million goal, campaign co-chairs Pam and John Beckert announced today. The campaign funds various means of strengthening the local food assistance infrastructure, including building the Food Bank’s Perot Family Campus in Plano.
Currently, more than 800,000 people in NTFB’s 13-county service area don’t have reliable access to affordable, nutritious food. One in four children and one in six seniors in North Texas suffers from chronic hunger. “Hunger is that invisible crisis that affects the child sitting next to yours in school, an elderly neighbor, someone we know at work, or walk by in a parking lot,” said Pam Beckert. “The face of hunger looks just like us. Our community cannot grow and thrive when so many of our residents go to bed hungry. A nutritious diet will also have untold ripple effects on education and healthcare.” While the Food Bank provides access to 70 million meals annually through a network of more than 200 partnering food pantries and 1,000 program sites in a 13-county service area, the actual need in North Texas is for approximately 92 million nutritious meals annually. “Our support of the Food Bank and this campaign has always centered around ensuring that hungry people have food on the table,” said John Beckert, also former NTFB Board Chair. “This campaign is the critical foundation to the Food Bank’s plan to distribute 92 million nutritious meals annually by 2025.” NTFB Board Chair, Anurag Jain, further explained, “The capital campaign was launched in 2015 by NTFB’s CEO of 20 years, Jan Pruitt, before we lost her in 2017. Jan knew this initiative was a major undertaking, but she saw the need to bridge the hunger gap for the future as well as the present and knew that our community could make this happen. We are extremely fortunate to now have Trisha Cunningham as our President and CEO.” Ms. Cunningham, who took the helm at the Food Bank in July 2017, said, “It is a privilege for me, together with our dedicated staff and extraordinary community of supporters, to build upon Jan’s legacy taking our organization into the future and accomplishing our vital mission in North Texas.” Stop Hunger Build Hope The Stop Hunger Build Hope campaign was created to fuel future growth for the Food Bank and their feeding network, and will further cement NTFB as a top-ranked Feeding America Food Bank. In addition to a new Plano facility, capital campaign funds will be used to upgrade infrastructure at local partnering food pantries– specifically targeting underserved communities – in the effort to close the hunger gap. The campaign will also help to fund a technology solution to better understand client health needs in partnership with the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation. The historic fundraising effort for the campaign was met with enthusiasm by more than 500 generous donors including:
The Perot Family Campus in Plano and the Moody Center NTFB’s new distribution center – which will include the state-of-the-art Alliance Data Volunteer Center – will open in Plano later this year enabling a broader support base to meet the growing need for food assistance in the North Texas region. The facility will be named the Perot Family Campus in honor of Lulu May and Bette Perot by Perot Family lead donors: Ross and Margot Perot, Ross and Sarah Perot, Nancy Perot and Sons, Suzanne and Patrick McGee, Carolyn and Karl Rathjen, and Katherine and Eric Reeves. The Perot family has supported the Food Bank since its founding and has a multi-generational commitment to hunger relief, with Bette Perot serving as a founding board member and providing NTFB’s first facility located in southwest Dallas. “Our family’s passion for hunger relief began generations ago with my grandmother Lulu May Perot,” said Katherine Perot Reeves, capital campaign lead donor and committee member, and current NTFB Board Member. “We have been so proud to support the Food Bank since its inception more than 35 years ago, and it will be a true honor to see their new facility bear the Perot name, recognizing the efforts of my grandmother and my Aunt Bette.” As part of the 10-year plan, the organization’s administrative offices were moved to the Dallas Farmers Market in spring 2015. As a result of the visionary support of the Moody Foundation, significant structural improvements will be made to the facility – to be named the Moody Center – and are expected to begin in 2019. “The Moody Foundation is excited to be a part of the Stop Hunger Build Hope capital campaign because the Food Bank plays such a critical role in food security for vulnerable people in the region, especially children”, said Frances Moody-Dahlberg, chairperson and executive director of the Moody Foundation. A Bright Future Although the capital campaign has successfully concluded, the Food Bank will continue to look to the community for support of their annual operations which provides access to 190,000 meals every day to children, seniors and families in need. “We know that each of the capital campaign gifts that made up the $55 million goal were powered by people who care about making North Texas a better place to live and work,” said Ms. Cunningham. “While completing this capital campaign was a milestone for NTFB, we must now work to ensure that dollars raised will be put to good use: creating a hunger-free, healthy North Texas. That will take continued work from each of us, but having a hunger-free community will undoubtedly be worth it.” |
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