Moorestown Breakfast Club hosts Val Traore

She discussed the Food Bank programs that serve families, seniors and children in South Jersey.

The Moorestown Rotary Breakfast Club recently hosted Val Traore, the CEO of the Food Bank of South Jersey. She discussed the Food Bank programs that serve families, seniors and children in South Jersey. She also touched upon their new mobile pantry and the Summer Food Service Program.

“We work with 250 food pantries in Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem counties to provide healthy foods to families in need. If you are in need of assistance, please look for a pantry in your county.

Our mobile pantry, the Hope Mobile, carries truckloads of food to ‘food deserts’ — areas that lack access to a viable network of food sources as well as to foods that comprise a well-balanced, nutrient- rich diet. Potential families must bring a photo identification and proof of income to the Hope Mobile distribution to apply for the program,” Traore said.

The Food Bank of South Jersey (FBSJ) is entering the fifth year sponsoring the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), running from June 13, 2016 to Sept. 2, 2016. The organization has sponsored 45 sites in 2015 and last year served over 91,000 meals to over 2,350 kids.

The organization is excited this year to continue those partnerships and expand the program to increase the number of children it feeds.

The program provides breakfast and lunch or lunch and afternoon snack for children at sites throughout the community, such as schools, summer programs, parks, swimming pools, churches, apartment complexes and anywhere children congregate. The meals are nutritionally balanced according to USDA guidelines and are provided at no charge to the sites and children

The Food Bank of South Jersey’s core mission of feeding people includes their health as equally important as the food it distributes. The Healthy Living Initiative (HLI) is its way to ensure that the people it serves have access to knowledge of healthy eating and cooking and how to best use the products that we provide to improve their health and manage health concerns.

This year the Rotary clubs have funded many local individual charities with proceeds from this and other events, including the YMCA — Camp No Worries, Moorestown Citizen of the Year, the filling of 160 backpack’s with $7000 worth of supplies for students in town, annual college scholarships to Moorestown High School students, Power up Gambia — Solar Panels, Curing Polio via Rotary International, Navajo Nation Clean Water Program, two AED’s for the practice fields in Moorestown, American Cancer Society — Relay for Life, Burlington County Sheriff — Project Life Saver, Moorestown Police Department — Policy Unity Tour, Kwempe Sewing Project, Community Treatment Solutions and pledges to the Moorestown Community House over five years to help refurbish the building.