C&S Wholesale Grocers announces its support of the 23rd class of Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellows, as it celebrates its 12-year partnership with the Congressional Hunger Center to develop national leaders to end hunger in the United States.
23rd Class Emerson Fellow Imani Marshall working with Market Umbrella, a community organization in New Orleans, LA.
Since 2005, C&S Wholesale Grocers has contributed to the Congressional Hunger Center’s mission to develop, inspire, and connect leaders who will create a food secure world. With support from C&S Wholesale Grocers, the Congressional Hunger Center has sponsored fellowships for 247 emerging U.S. anti-hunger leaders over the past decade in partnership with more than 177 local and national nonprofit organizations serving 46 rural and urban communities around the country.
Investment from C&S Wholesale Grocers also allows the Congressional Hunger Center to maintain an online library of nearly 200 publications authored by its Fellows, highlighting research and best practices learned during their placements with anti-hunger organizations across the country.
“We are grateful to have a partner like C&S Wholesale Grocers that recognizes the important roles transformational leaders and vibrant knowledge networks play in creating scalable solutions to end hunger in the United States,” said Shannon Maynard, Executive Director of the Congressional Hunger Center.
“What initially attracted C&S to the Congressional Hunger Center over a decade ago,” noted Gina Goff Senior Director of Community Involvement for C&S, “was that the organization develops a pipeline of highly motivated and bright young leaders in the effort to address hunger. With their training and field work, the Fellows continue to bring new ideas and fresh energy to communities where food insecurity is an issue.”
With the most recent financial contribution from C&S Wholesale Grocers, the 23rd class of Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellows will conduct six months of field work in six states at 11 community-based organizations including projects that will:
- Increase participation in school breakfasts in Seattle and King County, Washington, with United Way of King County;
- Test alternative methods of delivering school breakfasts (for example, “Breakfast after the Bell”) in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, California, with Second Harvest Food Bank; and
- Identify barriers to breastfeeding among low-income women in New Orleans, LA, with local nonprofit Market Umbrella.
Fellows then will convene in Washington, D.C. for six months where they will focus on policy
making related to the problems and solutions they addressed at the community level.
About the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellows Program
The Emerson National Hunger Fellows Program is a social justice program that trains, inspires, and sustains leaders. Fellows gain field experience fighting hunger and poverty through placements in community-based organizations across the country, and policy experience through placements in Washington, D.C. The program bridges community-based efforts and national public policy, and Fellows develop as effective leaders in the movement to end hunger and poverty.
The Emerson Program supports a diversity of local and national approaches to eliminate hunger, poverty and social inequality, particularly racism. It seeks to craft successful and mutually beneficial partnerships between Fellows and partner organizations while developing a new generation of hunger and poverty leaders. Fellows support partner organizations with program development, research, evaluation, outreach, organizing, and advocacy projects.
About C&S Wholesale Grocers
C&S Wholesale Grocers, Inc., based in Keene, NH, is the largest wholesale grocery supply company in the U.S. and the industry leader in supply chain innovation. Founded in 1918 as a supplier to independent grocery stores, C&S now services customers of all sizes, supplying more than 14,000 independent supermarkets, chain stores, military bases, and institutions with over 140,000 different products.